Dark Eldar - Balance / Suggestions Thread - Ultimate Apocalypse Mod (DOW SS) for Dawn of War

Use this thread specifically to talk about the faction; Dark Eldar. 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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Chaos Space Marines - Balance and Suggestions
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Dark Eldar - Balance and Suggestions
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Sisters of Battle - Balance and Suggestions
Space Marines - Balance and Suggestions
Tau Empire - Balance and Suggestions
Tyranids - Balance and Suggestions

Edited by: Lord_Cylarne

wall of text incoming

Surviving the early game was difficult but I pulled through with enough scourge spam and talos jump crowd control for the dense eldar mob against me, and then I managed to get a good soul farm up right before tau hit me too. I started building infantry buildings around the map to prepare scourge ambushes. The eldar definitely couldn't handle the talos even though i was significantly outnumbered, as long as I kept producing them. Then tau started sniping up the hills and started focusing my scourges in my base, so I brought even more scourges from around the map armed with dark lances, and they made quick work of the battlesuits and I sent remaining scourges to mop up retreating tau tanks. Then the space marines showed up armed to the teeth with terminators and predators. Good thing scourges are cheaper. Then I started popping out titans and the game was basically cat and mouse for an abruptly short time against SM once I knocked out Tau and Eldar.
Considering the maximum amount of bodies you can farm including talos and haemonculus, you can maintain about 18 Tormentor Titans before soul upkeep breaks even. They're already pretty cheap to produce, and if you ignore the battle frenzy you can just pump them out almost limitessly. I did this in hard with normal resource rates, and had no problems once i obtained at least 3/5ths map control.

The entire time though I tried many different units of the dark eldar, and I drop some input on how effective they were. Some I just plain didn't use effectively or find a use for. I played this game about 4 weeks ago as well so I'll probably forget some things.
Archon: Pretty good unit all game and strangely tanky? I was destroying vehicles with him somehow.
Haemonculus: I used him to farm bodies all game and bought levels to make him tanky. Thats about it.
Incubus: I used these guys to defend my base but I'd assume they're very effective with a portal system or transport to move around the map. You can fight forever and escape when forever escalates easily with these tough units.
Mandrake: Better in mass and cheap enough for it. I harassed early game cappers easily with them, and it makes for a better mass cap at such a cheap price.
Warrior: I found them to be weak early game against other ranged based groups. Once I got melee upgrades they worked surprisingly well for transporting into battle during midgame.
Hellions: They were nice but I only used one squad and started building reaver jetbikes instead. Possibly good against early melee?
Scourges: Imitation bread and imitation butter of the two biggest thorns in my side that match. Flying Reapers. They proved effective for the price, so I kept on spamming them. The regular scourge weapons make short work of Tau morale.
Wyches: Decided not on using them as I was already trying to learn the micro.
Warp Beasts: They're decent when you can maintain their morale. But it drops so fast, these guys become completely useless without some constant morale boost. Probably best suited for defense of buildings with morale upgrade.
Reaver Jetbike: I used these to harass Eldar all game across the map, I quit using them after I started focusing on Talos defense and farming.
Talos: They kept the eldar off my ass and they farmed my way to titan victory. Originally I avoided using these units since they were somewhat costly for how much health they had, but I manuevered around the offensive easily and regained resource control with my other units.
Raider: The weapon damage from the boarded warriors can easily decimate squads in the open once they are upgraded. Warriors came back in style until I had to deal with Battlesuits and Space Marines in the middle. I quit using them after I couldn't recover on a failed base raid.
Reaper: The map wasn't very big so artillery drew alot of attention. It almost got me killed when Tau jumped on them in my base in a huge battlesuit drop. Decided against using these as it wasn't worth the vehicle pop for what I had planned ahead with soul farming.
Ravager: Unneccessary with all the anti armor effectiveness I had going.
Raven: I built one to scout with, that was about it.
Rampage: This was actually pretty fun to use. Without enough souls mid game I had a good resource amount and sent these to eldar. They ripped all the surrounding territory away instantly and I moved in to cap instantly.
Shadow: I skipped out on this one, and started on Tormentor spam after the "rampage scouting mission".
Dais: I quit paying attention at this point and tethered him to my tormentor spam and shift attacked all base locations. 6 minutes later and I win.

I definitely got to start on my economy much sooner than my opponents and it was easy to keep up, if not exceed, enemy's resources. Tech tree is easy to climb to the units you need when you need them.
I feel that Dark eldar build method means you can exceed build rate against even superweapon spam. Perhaps the passive build speed on buildings should be slowed slightly enough to encourage sticking a worker or more on it in more risky situations. I felt it was reliable enough to even drop stealthed turrets around a good part of the map, which held off the Space Marines rather easily. And I constantly was teching up nonstop, passive build definitely doesn't hurt there. I cannot comment on SM as they pretty much did nothing whole game except for the last push inside their own base while I poked the beehive. They remained docile the rest of the game and I cleaned them up with Tormentors. Against Tau and Eldar, I found their lack of melee usage to be their downfall once my inferior ranged units obtained decent melee ability. I never saw more than one melee squad from Eldar at a time and Tau never even knew what melee was. Talos smashed into eldar infantry disrupting them the entire time while I teched up and scourges kept eldar heads to the ground. Battlesuits were distracting and packed a good punch but my response was just far more effective and in number. Firewarriors didn't stand a chance against warrior transports. Space marines never got the memo otherwise they would have built assault marines and shit tons of heavy bolters, but regardless the turret spam held back the termies and preds for awhile. Most of all though, the Tormentor spam was just way too effective. Soul upkeep should be 20 percent higher. I'm not too concerned what the titans req/power cost as that was never an issue. I think it would still be balanced this way, and encourage mixing tormentors in with the rest of your units until theyve worn out their welcome, unless you need them to act defensively on the field. It would also mean though that other players have an easier time shutting down tormentor spam by targetting corpse farms.

WHOAH!!!! Thanks man for this great feedback. I'll definitely have to go through this though with game running and Corsix open. Expect great 1.72 changes. :3

9/10

The only issue I have with the Dark Eldar are the Talos. I think they are a bit too tough--and perhaps a bit too strong. Other than that I think they are fine.

Edited by: TheGreatGargoth

Ok I'm mad, where did my big huge reply to the Dark Eldar go? I was sitting on the school computer on mod db checking for updates and bam gone? No...

... !!!

I'll redo this tomorrow...

I'm putting this here:

Dark Eldar Incubus Honor Guard dudes aren't affected by Hardcore.
Or they are affected by Hardcore and they're supposed to be 6400 or so health in basic but don't.

Edited by: LordRadical

ive found the dark eldar to be a bit lackluster in infantry models. i wouldnt mind some new models of kabalite warriors considering most of the DE stuff in soulstorm is based around the 3rd edition dark eldar codex, the latest is 5th, where the dark eldar got an impressive overhaul visual wise. i wouldnt mind having ranged weapon upgrades for the warriors, darklances, scredders, etc. Also i wouldnt mind a Dark Eldar Trueborn squad as an elite infantry unit, the difference being the trueborn warriors would have better shinier armour then the regular warriors, and also would have better weapons and abilites.

there are also a few new units from 5th edition you could add, like the voidraven bomber, the razorwing jetfighter, the groutesques, etc.

Harry I hope you are reading this...

If you want shinier armour give it a go yourself.

Forums.relicnews.com

Forums.relicnews.com

Then if you wanted to send it to Cyclarne, Yakka, Yakka, Yakka...

I do not know 5th ed DE well enough.

Also of you have ideas around changing the texture for the dark eldar armour.
Forums.relicnews.com

all using the one tool.

something you might like.

I personally think that Dark Eldar needs more units to keep up with other races in the mod. Most of other races have tons of new units whereas Dark Eldar only has few ones.

heres what the dark eldar look like now.

4.bp.blogspot.com

and heres what the raider looks like now

2.bp.blogspot.com

Ok, harry from your understanding of the rules of DE 5th is there anyway to use both sets of models as unique cabals or anything?
Ancient cabals?
Or a certain leaders cabal?

I know this may not be the best question but It will help determine how to not loose models and also increase model in the DE.

Looking at the resources for dark eldar you posted.

Edited by: RT2...

this is a a 5th edition kabalite warrior looks like
Fc01.deviantart.net
i guess you could use them as a trueborn squad, and the old warriors could be regular warriors.

here is the colour scheme for the black heart kabal
Images.wikia.com
heres an archon
Games-workshop.com

quite slender compared to the old archon.

and heres what the warriors currently ingame are based on, the 3rd edition kabalite warriors.
Images.dakkadakka.com

ive found the large horns/spikes to be a sort of marking of higher rank within kabalite warriors, and having all the warriors with horns on their helmets a bit too much. maybe make a variation where the helmet of the warrior doesnt have these horns on the sides of their helmets?
and also heres some of the 5th ed Incubi
1.bp.blogspot.com

Hahahaha. man that IG. the DE need some work what I've done to them cannot be forgiving 1reaver & 1warhound (Total destruction) vs I think 15 SuperShawdow tanks(so called anti-titan) and others eventually appeared and a dais In their base with defenses! I got through 3/4 his base before the other 2 reavers arrived please let the DE units live up to their name Cause just 2 titans Made DE(with semi-huge base) put on the apron and make me a sandwich.

My bad said ravenger ._.

Edited by: devmangekyou

I think this is a bug. You know how Dark Eldar don't build things, they 'summon' them and are then able to walk away and do as they wish. Well the Dark Eldar super structure (Great Kebal Fortress or something) has to be built like all the other races. If summoned and left it gets to 500hp and stops.

Dark Eldar was given so much love recently they are almost my favorite race now.

I have read through this entire thread and I was thinking the main problem of the DE was: stiff gameplay and soul resource integration. Have you all ever noticed how Warriors for example are totally weak and low in numbers? Yet Scourgers and Wyches, your better units cost a squad cap of three? And your soul resource income was too low and there was just that aggrovating Tormentor Titan and Soulstorm weirdness... FIXED.

Dark Eldar now absolutely gains souls faster upon harvest. Dark Eldar was given so many researches, that it makes their infantry and vehicles plausible for future combat. Along with that integration, the cost of souls was reworked and I am happy to say the Tormentor Titan bugs and annoyances, Soulstorm bugs, some stiff gameplay issues, and more were taken care of.

The Dark Eldar are tougher to beat now, and most of the FXes the Great Kabal Citadel once had was fixed!

There is just too many things to note, but the most important thing to note is, the relic units (Shadow, Rampage) no longer requires support cap, and the Tormentor Titan no limit was actually limited, by giving both the titan AND relic units a relic resource!!!

It is actually smooth. Build more Soul Cages to extend the limit. Soul Cage addons were reworked, the limit was dropped to three, and well, love was given to the Dark Eldar all over the place.

The saddest part in 1.72 however, was there is no more Soul Cataclysm for a temporary duration.

This is for balance and game breaking reasons that involve other races. I'm sorry to take away that addition like I did Eldar. ^^

But yeah, so many new stuff! I will not say more.

Replying to Feedback: I'm going to have to get to later this week. Thanks for feedback!

What is one to do (tier2 if approached) with weapon servitor spam and commander??

Tried using the helion but they died uber quick and while under fire of Scorn squad (they then turned around) and killed them too

They destroy Structures and units my vehicles (raider/Talos) really really fast like titan fast

I've noticed this against the DE I put this here because it may just be them or im not a very good player and my friend spams .__.

But besides that they have been doing great against everyone,Love all the new features they have 100% revamp just those daemon Hunters are thier worst enemy at least tier two with servitor spam

Dark eldar used to be my favourite race before i began to learn how to play IG, but now I dont know if i will ever get back to them beacuse they are to OP in my opinion. As long as i know them well still i am not able to counter them efficiently. Mandrakes are destroying guardsmens but i need to have psyker to spot them or build tactica control to have a scan. Even if I uncover they infiltration i still need to have screening unit for guardsman or melee to tie them which makes cost to counter just a mandrakes too high to call it balanced and i dont have to mention that they will not only create mandrakes but also stronger units. Even if i manage to win the race for collecting strategic points they are still producing endless stream of superb units despite having same resource income. They just have to build Lp on strategic points and it makes me have to create another squad able to destroy LPs :/ making me really vurnerable to inf attacks not to mention talos at that point beacuse thats the point where they start to overwhelm me. After few matchups and analyzed replays i see that they are ofcourse faster, can cap easier than other races and are no longer glass cannons. I need to watch replays more closely to find some suggestions but i am more than sure that they need nerfing. So far i have one, as long as mandrakes are elite meele fighters and have infiltration i still not understand why they are able to destroy my Forward outpost faster than 3 squads manned inside are able to kill them :/ their building damage should be lowered making them purely inf counter. Dont get me wrong I still love this mod i understand that balance is hard to achieve and thats why i am suggesting so much stuff last time.

What? That is crazy! (Mostly)

Dark Eldar Mandrakes for one die rather too easily, gets blasted by turrets as soon as I even get near them turrets, and Mandrakes by the time the Archon arrives are flat out useless because of Imperial Guard's turtling techniques. Mandrakes if detected, are almost dead because of their armor value, see?

The only nerf Dark Eldar needs is the Kabal Citadels' Soulstorms, THEY are OP, otherwise Dark Eldar do just fine.

DE damage versus structures in the beginning are weak, their turrets are hardly useable by relocating into a line of IG turret fire, and the fact they cannot stand against Chimeras are another thing.

Dood, the Dark Eldar THRIVE on infantry, they love to shred souls, if you hate getting your squads taken down, avoid getting hit and garrison your troops into the buildings or build loads of turrets. I needed 7+ strategic points just to take care of IG buildings against their three Strategic Pojnts, yet you say they need a nerf? They need a buff! They die too easily WITHOUT RESEARCH, and the Dark Eldar ai can be easily decimated by Necrons, Tyranids or any faction that is not an evil git wing blasting my throat off.

Dark Eldar in the 1.72 release was a huge challenge and I liked that so much because they are like Eldar, only more... better. They thrive on infantry, they cut you down in numbers with fast attacks, they are fast, and if you cannot overwhelm them in strength, then, yeah, in your perspective, they are tough bastards. But even then, they still need to get the requisition in the beginning to build LPs! Not to mention the fact they need to gather bunch of souls for their Tormentor Titans and abilities which takes a lot of time. (Worth it though and awesome once accomplished)

Don't fall in their trap. Dark Eldar are almost balanced perfectly like most other races. There are few exceptions, but their cost makes up for it. Their research they have however may change everything in later stages.

The only units I loathe to see played against are (so far):

• Inquisition Weapon Servitors
• Tyranid Lictors (op as heck, sorry)
• Dark Eldar Soulstorms (almost a game ender)
• Doomsday Monolith (if you have nothing but infantry and turrets)
• Tyranid Biovores (if used right)
• Eldar Dark Reapers and Harlequins (upon final research, and you got infantry everywhere)

I simply can't see your scenario, I even played against them with IG myself by building turrets, chimeras, knock out their Strategic Points with bazooka men and heavy weapons and bam they are dead.

I also enjoy cooking their Tormentor with my Reaver mega melta gun.

Edited by: Lord_Cylarne

Wow man you showed me i mentioned that it is my opinion that they feel op to me but still i didnt mentioned that i am not sure if i am playing against them correctly. If you will ever have a free time could you please make one or two replays and upload them? Links could be sent to Imperial Guard tactics on this forum. I have huge problems when playing: Team 1 IG, SM (my friend), and any AI race against Team 2 Dark Eldar AI, TAU AI, any race AI. Other i can handle before reaching 4th tier. BTW Great mod

Edited by: KaelaMenshaKhaine

Agree with you here doofus dark eldar are becoming much better balanced, I used to dread getting them when I randomed cause they were underpowered but now it's just that i'm a tad nooby with dark eldar that I dread getting them

although disagree with you about soulstorm, most races have a powerful strike it only needs to be weakened a tad, unless you weaken eldars eldritch storm, necrons shroud of antigravity etc.

Someone wrote: Please weaken these guys, they are becoming very overpowered, they are far too strong especially early game, the weapon servitors are far too lethal at destroying buildings and even later in the game they are by far the most powerful race. I think they need some kind of nerf. Hate to say it but they're the new tau.

What are you referring to? IDH?

What's your thoughts about Tau? Tau balance thread recommended... I am however not interested in version 1.71 feedback.

@BardockFH2: Well I am unable to give replays because I have the administrator Ultimate Apocalypse version, so replays will not be playable. I can make movies, but I have a very low quality video display for my fraps, and even if I do set it to full screen, fraps lags all over the place. Here is an example.

Moddb.com

I can get Tenshi to record my videos, but Tenshi is not on my computer using my brain, so... eh I dunno.

wrote it on another forum bit and accidently made it my forum signature, so stupid

Edited by: monkeynut

monkeynut wrote: Please weaken these guys, (snip)

I believe that's monkeynut's signature, at least he took the effort of copypasta'ing that on each and every of his posts lately. It seems he indeed suffers them IDH weapon servitors.
Ninjapost'd

@ Lord_Doofus: Messaged ya in Skype, I think I gots an idea.

@ Everyone: I'm the one known as "Tenshi", my previous username was "PsykoTenshi", still visible on my profile url and on my RelicNews username.

Edited by: Excogitatoris-Logica

Because of the DE style of fighting codex Is them ambushing you from the warp and looting the crew for souls . The kabals are in cammarogh so it makes no since for that to be their main HQ.
I think thier main Hq should be something like the Hive cloud was but better. It should be mobile and very fast with no negative effects on other things until later teirs .
This way thier will be no need for those webportals DE can now strike you and hop back in thier base"Warp/cammarogh" re group super fast in some corner and jump back in your base with more firepower giving them a true DE play style . Fast , destructive ,gone , and back for more.

Right now feeling true to DE war style isnt really made possible although their good (now) I fell as though this could be that thing that finally gives the DE some true difference and true thing to be reckoned with from the OP eldar because DE are faster and fiercer (Dark lance ignores amour btw look it up) so Scorn squads should lay waste to vehicles and not need me to assist them with warp beast JS, right now they play like craftworld should, with the usage of webways and relocation Except you have to use your head.

DE like in codex Should be a Constant Mobile strike force In and out the whole army creeping in the stealth-ed Warp/base as your enemy's over look you then swoosh down to where they're base is, let out the Firepower and get your warp/base out of their into hiding to get your next raid . relocation how the DE has it now should stay the same it would prove more effective with this change to DE and have The base/Warp to house all DE units ready to creep up and ambush you Just my opinion feel free to ignore......

Edited by: devmangekyou

So if I am hearing you right more of the warpstorms to represent DE buildings?
Loaded through warp storms like guard do in their buildings?
different styles of warp storm summoning for each different type of unit buildable section.
I must admit it always seemed dicky to have the building from the webway in real time space.

How about instead of the regular textured building we have nebulous warpstorm textured buildings.
Similar to what they are when they build
I really would like to see warp storms in an array of build and orientation as well as animations.

for close to 15 years the dark eldar have been out now and they don't seem like they present is Soulstorm.
I guess that is what you get when you have ego bloated pc game developers that read the codex once and think they know everything and wouldn't even know what a faq is or the history of the race.

LoLz Noobs.

you know that warpstorm super weapon would make a great base FX like the nids are....
Also over time and with addons It would expand to compensate the growing power of the warp storm...
An array of different sized warp storms that are the weapon of souls, could be used to produce units...
with a relocate function like the eldar have, but to anywhere on the map.
resource harvesting would be different coloured warp portals over the resource capture points.
Easy enough to do in FX tool.

they would be even more elusive then daemons in their warp contained worlds.
and their shrines to their dark gods.

I think you might find most of the people here learnt about 40k from DOW.
Not from the gw game that has been going so long.
So I guess this is a poor mans/womans 40k.

I know the only reason I am here is because there is no gaming community near by that I can get too, otherwise I would be in the game and not some rehash of some egocentrically deluded game develops ideals and ideologies from reading one edition of the codicies. and not even research a decent enough amount of background material.

come to think of it, all of the requests for any race has even from a limited number of sites and usually based around the last two editions of the real 40k.
Nothing from further back then 4th Ed.
It gives me pain....

I ask myself on a regular basis why I am surrounded by morons in this life, Morons that want to do nothing other then self medicate and play card games like a gambler with their obsessive compulsive gambling addiction.
Or why these morons have no other cognitive functioning then to only play pc games without any real mental challenge.
Loved Rogue trader. Would love a game of it too, and not on PC....
In the flesh with real humans.

So there are my theories on the dark eldar and how it is applied in the modern pc game and also why it should be rectified.
With a lil' back story. Got to make it colourful.