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Considering the problems inherent in plasma (that it's good against too many different things in quantity), a suggestion to take away its dominance while still giving it a role:

The basic problem is that an overcharged plasma weapon is the best or close to the best anti-tank weapon available almost all of the time, and at the same time it offers multiple shots that wound almost all infantry on a 2+, negating saves and multiple wounds. In theory overheat compensates for this, in practice (with rerolls and the occasional shoot-on-dying ability) it might as well not exist.

Personally I'd rather make the shots weaker rather than make overheat more punishing since that'd make using plasma less frustrating; if infantry plasma (plasma pistols, guns, calivers, and talons) were S6/AP-2 and only overheated to S7 meltaguns are suddenly a significant improvement as anti-tank weapons, they're worse against T4 armoured infantry while remaining a significant improvement over small-arms fire, and the difference between overcharging and not overcharging is lessened, which makes using plasma without overcharging more relevant by comparison and thus makes plasma units running around without rerolls more possible.

Plasma cannons are less of an issue than plasma guns because they're more accurately priced and the Heavy to-hit modifier makes overheat a lot more of a consideration, so I'd leave them as they are. Hellblasters, similarly, are more accurately priced and aren't a tremendous problem as a result; given that they're still fundamentally a plasma-spam unit I'm still going to suggest dropping the Incinerator and Heavy Incinerator by one point of Strength and reducing all three weapons to AP-3, but given that they are bigger and it's the only thing they do I'd still leave the non-Heavy ones at AP-3.

To summarize, altered profiles:
Plasma pistol: 12", Pistol 1, S 6, AP -2, D 1. Overcharge to S7/D2, bearer is killed on a 1 to hit.
Plasma gun: 24", Rapid Fire 1, S 6, AP -2, D 1. Overcharge to S7/D2, bearer is killed on a 1 to hit.
Plasma caliver: 18", Assault 2, S 6, AP -2, D 1. Overcharge to S7/D2, bearer is killed on a 1 to hit.
Assault plasma incinerator: 24", Assault 2, S 6, AP -3, D 1. Overcharge to S7/D2, bearer is killed on a 1 to hit.
Plasma incinerator: 30", Rapid Fire 1, S 6, AP -3, D 1. Overcharge to S7/D2, bearer is killed on a 1 to hit.
Heavy plasma incinerator: 36", Heavy 1, S 7, AP -3, D 1. Overcharge to S8/D2, bearer is killed on a 1 to hit.
Plasma exterminator: 18", Assault d3, S 6, AP -2, D 1. Overcharge to S7/D2, bearer is killed on a 1 to hit.
Plasma talon: 18", Assault 2, S 6, AP -2, D 1. Overcharge to S7/D2, bearer is killed on a 1 to hit.
Plasma cannon, heavy plasma cannon, plasma storm battery: Unchanged.

I like the way you are thinking, yet I do not think that only nerfing plasma is the way to go. The thing is (at least as I can see in my non-competitive local meta), that meltaguns and flamer are not only overpriced, but plasma, due to multiple factors (longer range, more shots than meltaguns...), is just more versatile in most situations.

So, to really make the holy trinity equal again, all 3 weapons (and consequently, their corresponding alternate weaponry) should be changed, or nothing will change at all.

I like the way you are apporaching plasma, yet I believe that only nerfing the damage will not really change a lot. Plasma should also feel dangerous! I think that every natural 1 should kill the bearer, but you can still try to re-roll and hit something. That way plasma will be dangerous, but potentially also worth the risk.

As that ties in as well, I want to briefly give my two cents about potential changes to melta and flamer-weaponry as well.
Flamers should be a great tool for killing hordes of light infantry. There are many ways to accomplish this, but I guess my prefered way of doing this would be something like D6 hits per 10 models in a unit or somehting.

Meltaguns have a, in my eyes, a good profile, but suffer a tad bit from other factors (apart from plasma, but also things like 9 inches minimum range). But I think, with the changes to plasma, melta could be just the (safer) short-ranged anti-tank weapon that we need.

Melta should double str inside melta range. S8 is a joke. Flamers should scale with unit size.

Just remove the overcharged profile from plasma-weapons. Simple fix, really.

Change flamers to d6 per 5 s3 +1ap. Great for dealing with lightly armored foes, not so great at killing anything else.

I really agree that melta should double str w/in half. That would be a big win.

I think changing the overcharge on plasma to double the shots instead of messing with the profile would go a long way in bringing the danger back and get rid of that pesky overcharge profile which causes a lot of issues.

bananathug wrote:
Change flamers to d6 per 5 s3 +1ap. Great for dealing with lightly armored foes, not so great at killing anything else.

I really agree that melta should double str w/in half. That would be a big win.

I think changing the overcharge on plasma to double the shots instead of messing with the profile would go a long way in bringing the danger back and get rid of that pesky overcharge profile which causes a lot of issues.

That would solve nothing. Overcharged plasma is bad for the game, because it annihilates w2 models. You need to get rid of that doubling of damage caused by overcharge, and doubling the shots would still double the damage.

It is fine to increase strength and AP with the overcharged profile, as long as there is no increase in number of shots or damage.

Also increase the price of plasma.

Why are you eve bothering to hit the Plasma Caliver?

On melta Strength: At that point I have to start asking why a dude with a pistol has the Strength of the main gun off a superheavy, and personally I'd rather drop the price instead of starting to inflate S/T.

On plasma overcharge: Double shots makes the problem (plasma too good against too many things) worse by making it better against one-wound models without making it worse against anything. The two-damage profile is there to offer some advantage to overcharging; dropping that with my suggested strength drops makes overcharging completely pointless against anything that isn't T6 or T7. Leaving the S7/S8 profile in place and cutting D2 makes plasma exactly as much of a problem against one-wound hard targets (non-Primaris Marines).

On cutting the two-profile issue entirely: Possible. S7/AP-2/D1 with overheat would drop the "why would you overcharge?" question, and it'd give melta a role plasma can't fill in being able to one-shot multi-wound infantry.

On flamers: I tend to resist "shots per (squad size)" as an extra bit of slowdown. I'd rather see a higher/more reliable number of shots base (d6+3, say).

On the plasma caliver: I'm making global changes to a class of weapon. It's here for reasons of consistency. Though given the distinct-roles question it may want to stay D2 given that Skitarii don't have melta weapons, the arc rifle is only multi-damage against vehicles, the arquebus is move-or-fire, and the caliver isn't very spammable.

Just make the Overcharge "Heavy 1". There, no more double tap. There's also a -1 to hit if you deepstrike.
Tau ion rifles are the same price as plasma guns, standard shot is "Rapid Fire 1" and their overcharge is "Heavy D3" but they only do 1 damage. So it's pretty reasonable IMO.

For melta, I would just let them reroll failed wound rolls against vehicles/monsters within half range, and then let them always pick the highest damage.

For flamers, increase range to 10" and let them ignore cover.

Flamers at 10" is a problem because that's in deep strike/outflank/shenanigans range.

First off, plasma should never have been AP 2 to begin with in the old system. It should have been AP 3.

Keeping the overcharge scheme, I'd say

Regular: Rapid fire 1 24" S6 AP -2 Damage 1
Overcharge: Rapid fire 1 30' S7 AP -2 Damage 2, rolls of "1" to hit cause a mortal wound to the wielder.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 malamis wrote:
Flamers at 10" is a problem because that's in deep strike/outflank/shenanigans range.

Why, yes it is.

Martel732 wrote:
Melta should double str inside melta range. S8 is a joke. Flamers should scale with unit size.

Melta wounds on +2 at half range. If one's worried about potential impact on full titans, add a line in void shield that makes melta wound on X.

Flamers should change to 2d6 S3 AP0 D1, hits on 2+. Makes "roll of 1 always misses" consistent, S3 correlates better with the targets it's meant to be good against, offset by increase in hits.

 skchsan wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Melta should double str inside melta range. S8 is a joke. Flamers should scale with unit size.

Melta wounds on +2 at half range. If one's worried about potential impact on full titans, add a line in void shield that makes melta wound on X...

I'm going to ask again. Why does a meltagun need to be better at wounding tanks than any non-superheavy main gun? If a meltagun is wounding tanks on a 2+ why isn't a lascannon, a neutron laser, or a prism cannon?

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 skchsan wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Melta should double str inside melta range. S8 is a joke. Flamers should scale with unit size.

Melta wounds on +2 at half range. If one's worried about potential impact on full titans, add a line in void shield that makes melta wound on X...

I'm going to ask again. Why does a meltagun need to be better at wounding tanks than any non-superheavy main gun? If a meltagun is wounding tanks on a 2+ why isn't a lascannon, a neutron laser, or a prism cannon?

Be....cause they have 48", 48", 60" range respectively? MM needs to be at 12", meltagun at 6", and inferno pistol at a hillarious 3" range. What happens at <12" from enemy? Most likely vaporized next turn... So.... wheres the risks and reward system for meltas? If meltas aren't going to be deadly at point blank, then alternate weapon needs to be devised IMO.

And mind you, MM's are more expensive than a lascannon, for the same damage potential with 1 more AP, half range, and 1 less S...

I actually think that the -4 AP and chose the highest for damage in Melta makes it has his niche. The only problem with Melta is that you can't deepstrike in half range (So yeah, NOW it takes actual effort to use melta properly instead of just droping with a bunch of veterans and popping whatever you want) and the point cost.

Thats the problem Skchsan, that a Multimelta is more expensive than a Lasscannon and normal Melta is more expensive than plasma. It shouldn't be.

 skchsan wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 skchsan wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Melta should double str inside melta range. S8 is a joke. Flamers should scale with unit size.

Melta wounds on +2 at half range. If one's worried about potential impact on full titans, add a line in void shield that makes melta wound on X...

I'm going to ask again. Why does a meltagun need to be better at wounding tanks than any non-superheavy main gun? If a meltagun is wounding tanks on a 2+ why isn't a lascannon, a neutron laser, or a prism cannon?

Be....cause they have 48", 48", 60" range respectively? MM needs to be at 12", meltagun at 6", and inferno pistol at a hillarious 3" range. What happens at <12" from enemy? Most likely vaporized next turn... So.... wheres the risks and reward system for meltas? If meltas aren't going to be deadly at point blank, then alternate weapon needs to be devised IMO.

And mind you, MM's are more expensive than a lascannon, for the same damage potential with 1 more AP, half range, and 1 less S...

So why is the problem the Strength and not the price?

While simply reducing points may solve the problem of meltas under performing, I'd imagine it'll end up being too cheap of a source of S8 AP-4's. Meltas have been historically the close-range AV weapon that dependably dented vehicles once the range was secured while long range AV such as LC's whittled away at the vehicles over a few turns.

Meltas spent turns (although nobody used it outside of the droppod suicide squad, because they were so deadly they were always the primary target against mechanized list) approaching its target for that one-shot one-kill potential, while LC's spent similar amount of turns glancing the vehicle to death.

LC was never a good AV, and it's good it has finally found it's place, but meltas are just really meh.

Just remove the chance of re-roll the failed hits of 1s. You want to overcharge? Fine, on a 1 the model is dead no matter what bonus and re-rolls it can receive.

GW would never remove hellblasters from the game like that.

Hellblasters or any kind of plasma that is not IG infantry. Theres a reason why Plasma sucked in previous editions, specially when compared with Grav.

I don't think the gun profile of Plasma itself is a particular issue. No one really quibbles with the different profiles in a vacuum unless there are some blatant over-powered profiles that occur. That has happened in the past with say Grav Cannons or Assault Cannons but pretty rare.

The problem is that cheap units can spam plasma or any other special weapon more than a more expensive unit. Ergo IG squad vs. marine squad. Those 20-30 points difference start adding up over multiple units. More cheap units? More special/heavy weapons you can take!

There isn't any external limiter or rubric to match the "Rarity" of the weapon with the number or type of units that can take them. This creates cognitive and fluff dissonance where we believe Marines get the best weapon outfits but yet the IG have more Special/Heavy weapons per Point Spent. Sure you may get a plasma gun every 5-10 IG troopers or 5-10 Marines but that is factored on a model basis and not points cost. So in a weird way, we have the grunts of the army better equipped than the elite special forces troops.

In practical terms, spamming the most effective weapon is always an issue. Having less "taxes" or mandatory bodies to have to take to get said special weapons will always be there. Min-Maxing is a thing go-figure! This edition it may be plasma and Reapers, but previous editions it was a different weapon. It's not the weapons or the weapon profiles themselves usually, but the actual way they are obtained.

hoya4life3381 wrote:
I don't think the gun profile of Plasma itself is a particular issue. No one really quibbles with the different profiles in a vacuum unless there are some blatant over-powered profiles that occur. That has happened in the past with say Grav Cannons or Assault Cannons but pretty rare.

The problem is that cheap units can spam plasma or any other special weapon more than a more expensive unit. Ergo IG squad vs. marine squad. Those 20-30 points difference start adding up over multiple units. More cheap units? More special/heavy weapons you can take!

There isn't any external limiter or rubric to match the "Rarity" of the weapon with the number or type of units that can take them. This creates cognitive and fluff dissonance where we believe Marines get the best weapon outfits but yet the IG have more Special/Heavy weapons per Point Spent. Sure you may get a plasma gun every 5-10 IG troopers or 5-10 Marines but that is factored on a model basis and not points cost. So in a weird way, we have the grunts of the army better equipped than the elite special forces troops.

In practical terms, spamming the most effective weapon is always an issue. Having less "taxes" or mandatory bodies to have to take to get said special weapons will always be there. Min-Maxing is a thing go-figure! This edition it may be plasma and Reapers, but previous editions it was a different weapon. It's not the weapons or the weapon profiles themselves usually, but the actual way they are obtained.

Yes and no. The issues that you've described here are certainly a thing that exist, but it is also possible for a profile to be problematic in and of itself, no matter how it's priced or taxed. There's the internal-comparison problem (one plasma gun is a better anti-tank weapon than one meltagun right now, which shouldn't be the case regardless of pricing), there's the problem of things that are rendered ineffective by schizoid design elements (in an extreme case you could imagine a Flyer (can't score) with a Toughness of 50, a rerollable 2+ Invul and a rerollable 2+ FNP, and ten thousand wounds, but which is armed with a laspistol and a 6+ BS; if you price it fairly for one laspistol-armed model it's silly because it's an unkillable laspistol-armed model, but if you price it fairly for an unkillable model it's silly because it's one laspistol and the other guy can ignore it and it'll never accomplish anything).

The problem with plasma guns is closer to the problem with mortal wounds in that pretty much everything is a good target for them. A cost-effective counter-everything gun renders specialized guns obsolete and is going to be spammed, and a cost-ineffective counter-everything gun is useless in all possible situations when specialized guns are better. Trying to stop plasma-spam by re-pricing plasma without changing the profile just deletes it as an effective option; I'd like to find a position where plasma is an effective choice without rendering anything obsolete, for which the profile is going to need to change.

Min-maxxing is never not going to be a thing, yes, but when min-maxxing involves taking as many as possible of one thing that's a pretty big hint that there's something wrong with the one thing.

I guess a better way of putting it is maybe the Strength 7th profile is pretty comparable to what has always been around. That profile is pretty much the same as it's been in 3rd edition. Granted it would probably be closer to Strength 7, -5 to reflect the AP2. So instead of making it -5 save, they sort of settled on this -3 regular mode. You could argue that plasma guns have always been there and always had potential to spam.

It has always been a great gun in a Marine heavy army and pretty much good against everything. That hasn't changed at all. I guess it's the 2 damage that's difference. They've made plasma slightly worse against single wound and slightly better against multi-wound. The 2 damage gets pretty bonkers if spammed on enough guns. Again, I don't think GW factors in spammability of their players despite how many editions.

For example, I have no proof but I believe the 2 damage mode was simply a design mechanic made to constrain terminators. Aka plasma has always been the anti-terminator weapon. So if we have only -3 Sv plasma now, then Terminators still get a 5+ regular or Invuln Save (doesn't matter in this example). I suspect they wanted to keep plasma as an anti-terminator weapon hence this mode. However, obviously terminators are nowhere to be found in this edition due to other factors. Now we return again to the spammability issue.

It really is a chicken and egg thing on the spam of the weapon vs. the stats/profile itself. Okay maybe wrong choice words. It's a 2 variable problem where a weapon with the best profile will be taken more than it's design philosophy and initial balance was. So in essence it's both the profile and the weapons spam. For me, perhaps since I've played this game for so many past editions, I tend to view the spam as the problem since this issue has always been around. Weapon profiles have come and gone and changed but min maxing the best weapons out of proportion has always been an issue.

bearer is killed on a 1 to hit

No. Just no. That part is really dumb and should be sent straight to trash bin. Plasma should be consistent with vehicles, you roll 1, you suffer one mortal wound, at worst. I'd even say go further and replace that with suffering one automatic wound with plasma AP. Why the hell should a terminator have the same chance of dying as some t-shirt IG mook? Past editions recognized that, it makes zero sense for models that can tank a lascannon shot to die because their pistol just became warm or something.

As for the damage part - I'd say yes, to limit damage on W2 meta, plasma should deal 1 wound, sure. That, however, will make overcharged shots look piddly in comparison - so I'd suggest keeping +1S on overcharge, and boost the AP to -1 over standard mode. Maybe even make roll of 6 to wound cause mortal wound instead?

hoya4life3381 wrote:
I guess a better way of putting it is maybe the Strength 7th profile is pretty comparable to what has always been around. That profile is pretty much the same as it's been in 3rd edition. Granted it would probably be closer to Strength 7, -5 to reflect the AP2. So instead of making it -5 save, they sort of settled on this -3 regular mode. You could argue that plasma guns have always been there and always had potential to spam.

It has always been a great gun in a Marine heavy army and pretty much good against everything. That hasn't changed at all. I guess it's the 2 damage that's difference. They've made plasma slightly worse against single wound and slightly better against multi-wound. The 2 damage gets pretty bonkers if spammed on enough guns. Again, I don't think GW factors in spammability of their players despite how many editions.

For example, I have no proof but I believe the 2 damage mode was simply a design mechanic made to constrain terminators. Aka plasma has always been the anti-terminator weapon. So if we have only -3 Sv plasma now, then Terminators still get a 5+ regular or Invuln Save (doesn't matter in this example). I suspect they wanted to keep plasma as an anti-terminator weapon hence this mode. However, obviously terminators are nowhere to be found in this edition due to other factors. Now we return again to the spammability issue.

It really is a chicken and egg thing on the spam of the weapon vs. the stats/profile itself. Okay maybe wrong choice words. It's a 2 variable problem where a weapon with the best profile will be taken more than it's design philosophy and initial balance was. So in essence it's both the profile and the weapons spam. For me, perhaps since I've played this game for so many past editions, I tend to view the spam as the problem since this issue has always been around. Weapon profiles have come and gone and changed but min maxing the best weapons out of proportion has always been an issue.

The rework of the S/T relationship and the removal of vehicle profiles made plasma counter-everything as much as the damage changes did; in 7th a plasma gun couldn't hurt AV14 at all (7+d6 capped out at 13) while melta was pretty good at it (8+2d6 has a 72% chance of getting to 14 or higher). I'm not advocating returning to the 'good old days' of a different to-wound mechanism for two different sorts of units for no appreciable reason, but I'm advocating a reduction to plasma's Strength so it can't hurt absolutely everything in the game reliably.

As I've said above I know it's a chicken-and-egg problem on spam. The problem that leads to one thing being spammed as opposed to a mix of things being taken is that the one thing is better in all situations. Imagine an extreme case where there are two types of units ("vehicles" and "infantry"), and two types of weapons ("anti-vehicle" and "anti-infantry"). If anti-vehicle weapons couldn't damage infantry and anti-infantry weapons couldn't damage vehicles there would be no incentive to spam one to the exclusion of all else, because doing so would be worse than taking a mixture.

I'm aware that's wildly oversimplifying the case, but I'm trying to point out that a counter-everything gun is fundamentally a bad thing to have in the game, because if it is more cost-effective than a specialist gun it renders all specialist guns obsolete, and if it is less cost-effective than a specialist gun it renders itself obsolete. Min/maxxing the best guns is always an issue and always going to be an issue, yes, but I'm operating under the assumption that a game in which "the best guns" is ten different guns is a better game than one in which "the best guns" is one gun because it offers players more choice in what they're using and means each game will be more different from the last because you will see more varied army lists.

I'm not trying to attack the concept of min/maxxing. I'm trying to attack the fact that min/maxxing in this case is "take as many of this one gun as you can" and is thus limiting the design space of the game (how many people would have bought Hellblasters if GW had made them a flamer-specialist unit?) and the competitive environment based on what that one gun is.

I guess this weapon that bridges the gap between vehicle and infantry has always been Plasma is my point. Plasma has always played this role in general for many editions. Sure there have been a few exceptions in the past. What comes to mind is Grav in 7th and Assault Cannons in either 5th or 6th. Those weapons became spammed due to design flaws in the weapon themselves. However, plasma has always played this generalist role. It has always been the sweet spot of light vehicle killer, marine killer, and Terminator hard constraint combined in one. Granted its ability to now hurt higher armor vehicles is a chance to vehicle damage charts in general. Sure plasma can do 2 wounds now, but I would argue plasma was more dangerous against armor values in the past since it could absolutely destroy the vehicle. So plasma is more low level and stable damage rather than the wild damage from before.

However, I don't think Plasma as a WEAPON itself is as abusive as Grav Cannons and Grav Guns in 7th or Assault Cannons back in the day. Grav was a design mistake in 7th as GW totally didn't understand the costing of this new weapon. They criminally undercoated the weapon. Then add on top of that the typical GW ignorance of min/max spamming and you have the Grav abuse. Same thing happened in either 5th or 6th (can't remember) where assault cannons would REND on the 6+ to HIT. This turned the weapon into an all threatening killer.

The bigger difference between Plasma and those weapons above is that plasma is only 2 shots rapid fire or 1 shot at 24. The guns above have 4 shots which is so much more powerful. Plasma at it's most is limited compared with multi shot weapons. So your point of it being anti-infantry and anti-heavy is not quite true. Plasma has always been anti-MARINE infantry and light/medium anti tank. That still applies and I would argue happened every edition. Where the Grav Cannon and Assault cannon was so much worse is the 4 shots turn it into ANTI-EVERYTHING. The modern example is Assault cannons with Bobby G. Sure it has only AP 1, but if those shots are always hitting and always wounding with re-rolls, it's pretty crazy.

Plasma has just always played this role that you are stating. So to me it's more the spam rather than the nature of the weapon itself. Sure it does steady damage now to all vehicles which is new. But that comes at the expense of blowing ARM 11/12 to pieces back in the day....

Relax, they’re going to get rid of the overcharged profile next edition, to make primaris marines reign supreme... in the name of $$$

That way GW makes it look like it is plasmas that are lacking, instead of primaris being too good.. because “primaris havent changed since last edition”!

Gotta sell ‘em all!

Northern85Star wrote:
Relax, they’re going to get rid of the overcharged profile next edition, to make primaris marines reign supreme... in the name of $$$

That way GW makes it look like it is plasmas that are lacking, instead of primaris being too good.. because “primaris havent changed since last edition”!

Gotta sell ‘em all!

Just for the record. Are you stating that Primaris are OP?


**********************

I think the premise here has an issue. If I use an anti-tank weapon against a lone infantry model, than I''m not even getting close to points efficency. It's like complaining about multi-meltas or Krak Missiles killing infantry. Getting hit in the face with any one of the three may hurt, but they are costed for their anti-tank role. You go full plasma and run against a hordes list you just aren't going to do well.

 ChargerIIC wrote:
You go full plasma and run against a hordes list you just aren't going to do well.

Except... certain army can go both full plasma horde...