Daemons (THB) - Balance and Suggestions Thread - Ultimate Apocalypse Mod (DOW SS) for Dawn of War

Use this thread specifically to talk about the faction; Daemons. The Ultimate Apocalypse mod includes 12 factions in total. We require your personal feedback to improve each and every faction. This thread will definitely help us improve this faction in the future, so if there is no discussion about this faction, it is possible to assume that this faction is perfect as is. We want your every opinion, constructive criticism, and thoughts to make this faction better!

No new content requests are allowed.
No bashing.

What do you feel this race lacks?
What needs to be nerfed?
What needs a buff?

Balance in general - rate out of 10 and state why?

All questions are optional by your choosing. Feel free to also talk about something else not mentioned, but only about this faction! This faction while fighting another race is acceptable.

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Edited by: Kairos_(Necronguy)

First off let me say that I love this race. I think their art is great, the variety of daemons is great, the way they use daemon power and relic power is great. HOWEVER, for competitive multiplayer they are broken. Even their most basic unit, the furies, once mutated, tear through armies, and even if they cannot hold the line, they hold it long enough for me to rush a Bloodthirster out, followed by a Daemon Lord, and 10-15 minutes in the game, no one seems to be able to stop that. They get crushed. Even the Inquisition won't have a lot of GK to counter that early. Daemon Towers are also obscene. Glorious, but obscene. I think they need an all around nerf, because nothing stands up to them in the early game, and you can keep map control very easily with flying lost souls and furies, keeping their armies bottled in their base while you make your long range turrets and warp in whatever nasty creatures you can afford, and since requisition is only used for Teching to the next level, power income tech, or minor daemons, you almost always can call in more minor daemons while you save up relic power to call in your nasty, nasty Greater Daemons.

I just played a match against them as IG, they were on standard. They owned the map early game with furies (against commisars and conscripts, where usually commisars would help tip the balance). I rushed a command tank for my Lt. and steam rolled into their base, but they just spammed furies and killed all my army except the tank, eventually i retreated. This whole time i thought i was being smart by building up defences and what have you for when they counter attack. Nope, they just spammeed furies, had incredibly powerful artilerry, which is impossible to counter because they rip through aircraft as well. Their commanders destroyed my commanders, their range fucked my range, i have no melee but they have all the melee's,

I love them as a race and they are a fun challenge to play against. But to be honest they seem like they've gotten every strength with no weakness. As the person above me mentioned their static defences are out of this world so early in the game, and continue to be a challenge into late game. Also one of their commanders can straight up just click and kill other commanders. The reason I think they are unbalanced is this was on standard difficulty on a small map. I don't know how much their units cost or their structures cost, but the amount of damage i caused them at the 10 minute mark should not have allowed them to gg at the 17 minute mark. So unless its an AI balancing issue (their resource rates depending on difficulty) then I have to conclude that this race is overpowered and imbalanced in my personal opinion.

Epic models, really well done. But I don't think any IG player could stand against a Chaos Daemons player of equal skill with what he has to work with UNLESS their is a solid chokepoint that they can turtle with. IG should not be forced into playing on these maps. I speak only from an Imperial Guard players perspective.

LOL, I see IG players complain just about everything when it comes to balance. If they cant turtle it then its OP which is kinda lame and the mod leader did say once that the mod wasn't intended to promote turtle games. Daemons, Nids, and DE are know for have a powerful and fast early-mid game which can been seen by the size or power of their very first units. IG (and necrons) on the other hand doesn't really stand a chance into mid/late game and this race seem VERY popular so people tend to think that things are unbalanced when IG cant stand on equal terms against the every other race.

When I fight Daemons (or DE/Nids) I know the AI or any wise player will use his early game advantage to try and crush me at the start. To counter I play turrets near my key structures and get my GRENADE research which is all to well forgotten in many of the games i'v been in and watched I hardly ever see people use them. Grenades in early game have a big impact vs the low armored starting units especially furys and gaunts and for IG don't forget your early game conscript spam / auto reinforce which can hold its own against the enemy for sometime at least until you get a few turrets up.

Another word of advice is to TAKE THE FIGHT TO THE ENEMY if possible. if your able to fight off or push back the player early game then don't just sit around in your base and turtle (its a sure way to lose in a real game) instead take what you got and go after them as they really wont expect it and even unprepared to handed at attack on their base since they put resources/time towards an early attack (this should be followed up placing a few turrets in/near the other player base) and don't forget to uncap the other teams captured points as well because it lowers their sight of range and ability to fight back due to a lower income.

As for Daemons weakness I'd say anti daemon weaponry and commanders especially. Many fractions beside IDH have a strong unit/commander that if one would take the time to read its description (that the mod team worked hard on) they would find out that its good vs Daemons and monsters alike. In general daemons (other than Daemon commanders) are weak VS commanders and IG has a great anti daemon commander (although its late game). Another key weakness for Daemons is aircraft.... unlike DE and Nids, Daemons are very limit when it comes to attacking aircraft (Horrors, Screamers, and turrets) and if I recall correctly IG have no problem when it comes to aircraft their bombers and the Gunship especially can even take down the strongest of the Daemons units (since they are all really melee based). I found this a great pain to deal with when playing as daemons fighting other fractions and i honestly think that the Daemons could use a some kind of aircraft of their own.

Edit: also many of the wincondition your pick may benefit some races more than your own like titan wars and +40 population. You should know that titan wars and population changes creates a larger gap in balance. Daemons use relic resource much like players use requisition or how Sisters use faith so keep that in mind when you make a game. Also Nids and orks can reach max population faster and cheaper than anyone else so increased population helps them greatly.

Edit #2: Daemon building rabidly lose health and are destroyed when the Daemon HQ is destroyed.

Edited by: VoidLight

I don't play IG. I play Space Marines, Necrons (which are another race I have an issue with at this moment), and Orks. I play the other races as well, but they are not my mains. No one I have played against can hold a candle against me when I play Daemons. Their aircraft die to Horrors and Shadow Horrors. The Daemons need no aircraft. No one seems to be able to do jack shit against Daemons when playing on standard resources. Get Bloodthirster out, GG. I can get a second one out immediately. I usually make two Greater Daemon Circles anyway. Turrets do nothing. Mutated furies soak up early game turret fire and can hop around, kill techpriests that are repairing, etc. The fact that you said "IG and necrons ont he other hand doesn't really stand a chance into the mid/late game" means there is imbalance. It needs to be fixed.

I can do about the same thing with DE and Nids. I can rush other players and crush them early game with my units/turrets. IG can also reinforce their building with cheap troops/builders and fight back pretty well and last i checked turrets drop furys pretty fast. SM/CSM are expensive and durable so they will still have problems like everyone else (other than DE/nids) dealing with an early game rush. its a part of the game and I personally like to rush my enemy rather than dealing with their crap later. Even in multiplayer game I have beaten and lost to other players as Daemons or fighting them. In the end its how you use them that makes them 'OP" because I know some players that make everything race look OP. Horusa for example wins just about every free for all game he plays and he's always a random race. I still remember when he beat me using SOB and never used one angel .

Although I do think their HQ upgrade speed should be nerfed a bit.

Edited by: VoidLight

I tried to play against Demons with Necrons.

About Eight minutes into the game they already had a great unclean one attacking my little monolith.

When i play as them i dominate real fast. And when i play against them they destroy everyone including me real fast.

They seem to have all the perks and no negative things

They're quite simply the most overpowered faction in the game right now, and the biggest issue with regards to balance. When I play FFAs I don't select random AI enemies anymore as the Daemons just end up dominating everything.

I think the major problem that is causing them to be so OP is their incredibly fast tier-up time, high relic resource rates and the fact that their greater daemons (such as Bloodthirster, Great Unclean One, Lord of Change, Keeper of Secrets) only cost relic resource and multiple can be fielded by the 10 minute mark on standard resource rate settings. These are units which Chaos SM can only produce in the late game, whereas Daemons get them incredibly quickly.

So, those are the major problems, but other issues include the range and destructiveness of the Hellspawn (even devastates aircraft IIRC) and the range of the Daemonclaws Obelisks.

So what do you think should be done to "balance" Daemons? So far I just think if you nerf their range then if would be difficult to fight aircraft and if the relic resource is nerfed hard then they wont be able to fight back mid tier tanks or land raider/baneblades. Daemons have a limit selection of units them self so it would be hard to balance them well without making them punching bags. The hell spawn is just the Deamons artillery (highly inaccurate) just like any other annoying artillery unit its going to attacking you from far away like earthsharker platforms, whirlwinds, and the spammable basilisks.

While I do agree that Daemons tier up really fast it cost more per tier than anyone else (although that does not balance how fast it really is). I can see greater daemons being pushed up another tier but juggernauts and demonic defilers cant fight off others storm ravens and predators. IDH also seems to tier up pretty fast and are able to deploy Dreadkinights and other anti daemon relic units so what should be done about that? also it takes 11k relic resource to buy Angron so if the relic resource is nerfed it would be nearly impossible to field him while unlike the Archangel and Grand master that have a much more affordable price even in pvp games. Idk about the word nerf being thrown around that much because it seems you want them to be punching bags when they are known for being a great threat just as SM are known for being super soldiers.

Also the Daemon obelisks can easily be justified by the fact that daemons have no superior turret and that Necrons and nids turrets have long range as well, especially with their higher tier turrets and listening post/ wall turrets (necrons) that seem to be really effective vs everything. Daemons need effective anti aircraft turrets (only effective with the expensive upgrades) because the basic horrors wont cut it when another play sends a wave or barracudas or something to attack the player or even worse relic aircraft units and much like the Hydra AA tank a long range is required to reach the aircraft that attacking from a distance as well.

I must agree with physicsman they tech up to fast to there uber units wich just wont die and the range of the helspawn and the black pinky thingies (forgot the name) is just to much .

The artillery of the ig i can handle but the hellspawn just shoots from one side to the other it seems.

It shouldnt be that easy to win with a race or be defeated by the same race thats proof enough.

Btw not stating fact just my 2 cents

Only problem for me is how fast they field the greater demons. Tone that down a bit and they should be ok. Their artillery is limited in number and wildly innacurate. Their turrets can be annoying, but then again just about any factions turrets can be annoying if massed and upgraded.

If lowering their relic resource income makes Angron to hard to build his relic resource cost can just be lowered to compensate. It will still take ages to get him built because of his other resource cost.

Well, as I said, the tier up time is probably the biggest issue and it's why Daemons are able to field their uber units so quickly as well as being able to upgrade their turrets to max effectiveness pretty damn quick too.

In order to balance Daemons, I think just increasing the time it takes for their tier-up research to complete (to around the same time as all the other factions) would suffice. There is no reason for them to tier up at the rate they do currently, and it's quite clear that this is causing the wild imbalance we are seeing.

I should note that is the Daemons themselves that are unbalanced, not their AI - I can easily beat IDH in a 1v1 using Daemons on Insane difficulty with no restrictions for the AI, which is definitely an issue given that IDH are supposed to be Daemons' hard counter.

have you taken a good look at the Inquisition? they tier up super fast and can spam op Dreadknights that cost 310 relic points each. Greater daemons are NOTHING compared to Dreadknights so they should be nerfed first. saying IDH isn't op an trying to nerf daemons sounds more unbalanced. I mean really in a few secs a Dreadknight can kill any greater daemon even the commanders/hellspawn and what makes it worse is that they are super durable. Wont even start talking about the insane rat at which IDH can increase their resources with urban territories and workers or the stupid amount of HP they can gain by constantly building shrines. So no given all that IDH are the real op ones. I destroyed necron monolith in under 3min using just 2 bodyguards armed with 2 melta weapons each. If IDH is this powerful than there's noting wrong with daemons. and I will say the AI suck at using IDH compared to players you wouldn't understand the level of abuse they can do.

Edited by: VoidLight

I'm not saying IDH aren't OP in their own way, they do certainly have crazily powerful units (Paladins, Grand Master), but Daemons are far far worse from my experience.

Essentially, the 2 new factions (IDH and Daemons) are both OP compared to the other races, which was to be expected really given that they've just been introduced to the mod, and need to be rebalanced.

The thing is, by the time you're able to get a DreadKnight, your base is already overwhelmed with furies and relic units.

"relic units" that really depends on the player and map. I'm also sure IDH gets terminators faster than any other fraction... only requires 1 HQ upgrade and the have access to elite and relic units provided that you its not quick start and you use your urban territories properly you can easily deploy a dreadknight around the same time daemons have greater daemons fielded and not to mention that 1 dreadknight can kill SEVERAL greater daemons and other fractions relic units alone. So even if they get a greater daemon first whats the big deal IDH is spawning superior titan units at the cost of baneblades (they also teleport and are well shielded) cant even compare greater daemons to dreadknights I personally have felt the abuse and OP IDH can bring early/mid game. there is honestly no need for them to waste time making warhounds or even need Reavers since dreadknight are able to kill everything. I honestly think they should be moved to the titan building and be priced similar to that of a warhound.

Dragadur is right, I've tested this on an average 1v1 map with standard resource rates and it takes less than 10 minutes to start fielding relic unit Daemons (Bloodthirsters etc) whereas it takes around 12 minutes to get GK Dreadknights out (and Dreadknights cost a lot of power, whereas Greater Daemons like the Bloodthirster only cost relic resource). Both cases were on Harder where I had to build turrets and other units to fend the enemy off, so it might be possible to get these units quicker on other difficulties but the main point is that Daemons can get their uber relic units out a good couple of minutes before IDH can get their uber units out (which is enough time to destroy a whole line of defenses as well as a couple of GK teleporters).

Edited by: PhysicsMan

My opinion or balance for Chaos deamons -10/10

I will post my post here:

"Nice job but Chaos deamons are new meaning of Over powered

I was playing against 2 AIs, normal diff, i got space marine allie and i was Imperial guard. Eldar died first. We got deamon cornered in map, allie was attacking with vehicles and infantry and i was pushing from flank with Leman russes. I was also enjoying a new cavalry for IG.
Till a some kind of warp storm striked and devoured my karskineers, cavalry and heavy weapons team
Then BloodThirster and Keeper of sacret attack and pushed SM out.
Then another small warp strom attacked and killed 3 Squads of Guardsmen and commisar.
The game started to be pain. I builded Strom thingy relic tank
And Deamons builded some flying skull that fires across entire map omg

And they then attacked with massive army, with big deamons in number.
My Storm relic tank fight well till some half machine half deamon come and reckt it.

Then the game transformed to survival.My base was demolished in few seconds and i flew with civilians, general and tech priest to AIs base. IT was only matter of second before the Maledic thing one shooted all allies civilians.

Then end, maledictdes skull one shooted my civilians and game over.

so.... he was cornered, he was rushed by me and gettin attacked by SM, he barely controled 20% of map and then he attack with such power even The finest of imperium couldnt survive it.
)
Thats balance as fuck

2 (Who are having most of map and resources) vs 1 (Who is attacked, cornered and fight on multiple fronts)
Whate hell is this crap ?!

I bet he would even beat 3vs 1
Or 4vs 1 "

That sume things up:

Nerf the crap out of Hell Spawn, it have Rapid fire 600 damage across map attack.

Warp thingies, some small warp storms that butcher my entire soldiers plattons

Give a some warning of that, so i can save their asses.

Nerf all Greater deamons like Keeper of sacred, Chaos deamons can build them all at once (Almost) and EVEN ONE IS HELL OF FIGHT !?

Also nerf i forgot the name some snake-like secondary commander, it have isane ammount of HP and ussualy run to my masses of guardsmen and cavalry and he slaughter them all.

Notice my rating

-10

IDH and Daemon are OP but Daemon is far worse than IDH. Even in Standard difficulty. I think they deployed top tier Greater Daemon too fast. Compared to Space Marines AI at same difficulty (Actually playing on same match), they just deployed few Marines and some Dreadnought.

According to my story I posted in mod page while ago: (I'm 100% sure I saw they have 3 Keeper of Secrets, 3 Great Unclean One, 1 Greater Daemon of Slaneesh at once)

"I played on 6 players map with Standard AI/30 Unit Cap/Normal resource rate. I played Imperial Guard with Space Marine with an ally, Chaos Space Marine and Chaos Daemon allied as my main enemies, Tau and Necron are independent. At the early game, I quickly capture every nearest Strategic Points in my area. Sometimes Furies are capturing in my area but I easily fled them out with Conscripts even my Conscripts's guns are weak and can't even scratch them. They just fly away and let my men capture it back.

Then when I'm in Tier II I replace all Conscripts with Special Weapon Teams with every squads have at least 2 Stun Grenade Launchers for morale shocking and assorted weapons and half-dozen of Chimera Tanks equipped with Heavy Flamer, then I see Space Marines are being attacked by Daemon. I order my army to help them. At first I just see Pink Daemons and big 4 legs Khorne's butcher machine (Can't remember its name). My men can handle them. But the true fight isn't begin until now...

Out of nowhere, 3 Great Unclean Ones, yes, THREE F-CKING GREAT UNCLEAN ONE plus big bad Slaneesh greater daemon (Can't remember its name too) and some lesser daemons are countering my attack. Certainly, my tanks and its badass crews can't even scratch them and completely wrecked. I stunned but they're buying me time to recreate my army. While Daemons are crunching, chewing my men and Space Marine's base. I advanced my base tier, building Tank Command and Mars Pattern and then recreating my army with Karshins, Orgyns, all level 10 Heroes units (I have 10k+ of Req and Eng), 5 assorted types of Leman Russ tanks (Carefully picked) and badass Baneblade with 2 Baneblade repair vehicle escorted. I order Techpriests to build Titan base and order my army to ready stand in front of my base. Space Marines are defeated and I realized Tau and Necron are defeated too. Daemon's artillery demon are start throwing its energy balls at my outpost, Greater Daemons and Lesser Daemons are marching to my base. It's time to defense.

3 Great Unclean and Slaneesh GD are roaming into my defense line. My tanks and infantries are firing all weapons they have. Explosion, fire, bullet trails, energy balls,Yucky green fluid flying all over and yes, lag storm too. 2 minutes of lag storm passed, Slaneesh GD dead and 3 GUO's health are starting to go critical. I couldn't believe my eyes. 5 Elite tanks, 4 Elite Infantries and 1 Super tanks are actually killing 4 incarnations of Daemon Gods. And lesser daemons are dying too. But I lost 2 tanks and half of infantry. Baneblade is survive unscratched but 1 repair vehicle destroyed. I relief a bit and starting to recreating my army to counter attack them while they lost most of troops.

But it isn't over.

3 Keeper of Secrets, some Daemonettes plus 1 Soul Grinder are destroying my second base while I focus at my defense line and then marching at survived Imperials. It isn't like the first defense because my all of my tanks are heavily damaged (Except Baneblade). I managed to destroy Soul Grinder but then I'm watching my tanks crushed by Keeper of Secrets and then my main base too. But it's not over I still have 1 base left.

Thanks to them destroyed Baneblade. I can build General's Titan now! While they're destroying my main base. I have time to build some Tier IV Leman Russ and some best infantry. But it too late. Daemons just finished wrecking my main base and turning to attack Titan base. But fortunately, my Titan just finished! I quickly upgrade Autocannon and other things. But my Titan is surrounded by Daemons at melee range so it getting wrecked by KoS and other Greater Daemon. Titan's command bar start to flickering. I think getting stunned by some kinds of Daemon's ability and then...

Completely eradicated.

My Titan, my best tanks and my best infantry defeated by Daemons. I can't stand to watch my last base destroy too. I found Chaos Space Marines didn't do anything just capture, building troops and sit to watch Daemons wreck my base.

This is my story. I'm not joking. I didn't play Daemon before so I don't know you can summon Greater Daemons this much. It very unbalanced. Even their starter unit, Furies, can quickly break every factions's troops morale. At first they very vulnerable to Flamer but at late game you can't even scratch their morale. They can fly, they can be invisible too.

TL;DR : Chaos Daemon is overpowered.

P.S. Easy Daemon AI is fine. They're actually easy."

Edited by: ThisIsVegas

ThisisVegas i Feel with you

I was IG like you and i had SM allie too.

We couldnt stood at chance

For more read a bit above....

Anxozt wrote:

ThisisVegas i Feel with you

I was IG like you and i had SM allie too.

We couldnt stood at chance

For more read a bit above....

I read your story and other comments. I'm seconding that Daemon is the worst and need rebalance. At least slower AI.

The only thing i would suggest is increasing the time it takes to upgrade to the next tier. I feel like the armies themselves are balanced especially given the costs, the lack of top tier infantry, and the incredibly small pool of ranged units

Edited by: Wallabe

I totally agree with Wallabe I think the only real problem is the HQ upgrade speed which is insane. Other than that everything seems fine especially as Wallabe points out that Daemons lack real elite/endgame infantry that everyone else seems to have thus making daemons relay on the their vehicles (Greater daemons) which take 5 pop each to make up for it.

Really, if there was a hard cap on greater daemons that would go a long way toward making them counterable. Having a half-dozen teleported into your base shortly after the match begins is not in any way, shape, or form balanced or fun. It is tantamount to instant victory, and quite literally impossible to counter. As other posters here have said, some of the health values for their units are utterly ludicrous. Seeing shadow fiends survive fire from titans is not at all uncommon, and even furies are hilariously lethal when upgraded, and nurglings are little better. Absolutely every aspect of the faction is broken to hell, from the turrets to the "artillery" horrors to their commander's ability to simply kill any unit he pleases with one ability. I love their looks and the way they play, but they badly, badly need a nerf. I must agree with other commenters in saying that IDH are also laughably OP, but they're counterable. Daemons are not.