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

Use this thread specifically to talk about the faction; Tyranids. 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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Tyranids - Balance and Suggestions

Edited by: Lord_Cylarne

The only problem currently in this faction is that they are insanely loud when you are playing as them

Is that something to get used to? I also have another complaint about that same incident, however, this will take forever to fix...

6/10

When Tyranid Raveners are upgraded with deathspitters, they will literally instantly destroy the morale of all of your units, rendering them almost useless. Reduce the morale damage or reduce the number of deathspitters they can have.

Make Biovores more expensive. They are very cheap to produce compared to artillery units of other races. Also reduce of size of the giant splash effect, it covers half of the entire screen and makes the game lag.

Zoanthropes, since they are long-ranged fire support units, should have drastically reduced durability and health. They are too tough to kill right now, and they already have the invincibility thing that makes them even harder to kill.

Edited by: TheGreatGargoth

100% agree with TheGreatGargoth again here. Raveners, oh man lol they're so strong for what they are!

Raveners quick fix was definitely fixed... working on the Zoanthropes and other stuff, but Zoanthropes... I dunno, I think they are fine as they are. Who disagrees?

Well when i look at DOW II then apocalypse i don't see much of a problem with Zoanthropes BUT they can't freaking aim x_x In the last games i made with them they Always (well 99% of the time) missed their target , either the ball goes above (ground units) or through (air units) , but rarely explode on the target

op as fuck / 10
Saddly it seems no one knows the most op part about the nids.... there buildings as you start to build more building your costs go neg and you can end the game in a good 2 min
go ahead and try this
* play the nids
* find your enemys base with your builder ( check the starting spots)
* start build broot hives as far away as you can from them
* keep building ...
* watch the cost drop to 0 then -
---------------( you win at this point ) ---------------
* at these point keep building them and start pouring out units from them or start going fora cap tower.
* Orr start building there op ass turrets out side there base and start upgrading them

all in all this glitch makes you win and its a no brainier

so problems
> building any most(maybe any) gives you money after about 5 of them
> there turrets have crazy range and dmg (ever tho most races do) 10 or more ( upgraded) can take down a titan easy
> there builder can scout and build any ware , maybe make it so you can build with in 100 ft of an enemy building

Edited by: 7h3c0mm0c0w

There are many things that bugs me about this race (that I play 90% of the time) since GR.

1- My biggest griefs about the nids are in fact the main base (HiveFleet) itself. It's too big,too slow and not especially useful as you can deepstrike their buildings anyway. Pesonally I have no use for it and I let it stay at it's spawn point until the end of battle while this stupid AI launch it into battle and slow it's whole army (and mine) because of pathfinding issues. Whole gameplay experience is messed up especialy when you reach battles climax (TIER IV) and while AI launch waves after waves of spinegaunts which drops my fps so low that it is almost unplayable. Seriously, most of the times, I have to use carnifexs bioplasma area attack to kill them and permit my own units to attack EFFICIENTLY. That's plain frustrating. Sometimes AIs are sending their 4 Hivefleets to ennemies HQs and prevent any other units (may it be their own or mine) to attack.
Something must be done about that because it seriously kill all fun (both the hive fleet problem ansd spinegaunts spam). While it looks like very close to fluff feeling of the race, gameplay wise, it is a nightmare to manage.

2-Hivemind (builder) is often stuck after some time where there are big concentration of buildings and then I can't build anything until I find which building is blocking it and then I must destoy it to free it I guess it happen easily to AI too and I wonder how it is dealing with it...

3-I agree with 7h3c0mm0c0w about turrets (though it won't serve me as a Tyranid player ) they deal too much damage after being upgraded and it seems that parasitic organism which is expulsed is equipped with heatseeker modules too. I often lol at them while I see a target trying to evade and see projectiles making a 90° turn (sometimes more) and hitting them while they should manage (imho) to evade.

4- Why Trygon can't use tunneling like raveners do? I am bugged by this fact while it is one of their main codex capacity/specificity. That's something I'm really missing with them. How many times I'm finding my Trygons blocked by (once again) myriads of spinegaunts and no way to make them evade (aside canifexs "trick") this plague. Tunneling will help greatly in that case...and not only. On a positive note I love their new "voice" sounds.

5- Concerning Zoanthropes. Well, maybe reducing their HP 1/3 because it's true that they are very durable, even against a Terminator assault squad. Nice for the one who plays nids but quite frustrating for an SM player imho.

6-AI is not really using advantage of it's ability to deepstrike buildings. Instead, it build tones of buildings at it's starting location and after some times (TierII or III) many of it's units are stuck in between buildings. Carnifexs and trygons most often. I know it's mainly a problem of DOW itself and it happens to any factions but it reach a really critical state with nids and I noticed that it is responsible of huuuuuuuuuuuuge performance drop. This combined with spinegaunts spam are completely killing performances.

Overhaul, nids are clearly op and the hive fleet and spinegaunt problems applies when you play against them too. Fluff wise ,yeah, that's terribly close and I felt despair which must be felt by IG on Beta Anphelion for example I tried to play against them several times (as SM and Necrons) and had to lower difficulty (from insane to hard)...and I still lose every matches...even though I know them pretty well.
When I play as nids I'm maxing difficulty and handicaps from DOW AI Skirmish EXE (both from tyranid mod and UA, just to be sure) and felt no difference. Overhaul a match is done in less than 15minutes and an overhaul 30minutes (just enough to spawn a hierophant ) on almost any maps (8p excepted as it is unplayable for me). So, the "apocalypse" does not have time to unleash from the other side which is quite frustrating .

Not sure if this is a bug or not, but I never see Tyranids make any Hormagaunts or Termagaunts. They do make Spinegaunts, but as sinblood stated, only later in the game (which isn't really a problem IMO).

Also Trygons are too tough, it takes forever to kill just one of them.

tyranid artillery wayyyyy OP!

When the Hive Tyrant uses his catalyst ability (to stop everything from dying) he shouldn't be able to regenerate health at the same time. It means you have to continue shooting at him in order to keep his HP down on 1 (or whatever) despite the fact you're doing no damage.

Edited by: R3PT0R

I m afraid to receive a thunder hammer in the face to even suggest that but hey i can recover after!
There are few other mods using the meshes and animations of the tyranids for DOW2, and these guy managed to to a Tyranoflex and Tervigon as last tier units ( they are awesome). I do think you guys have the best mod but that the thing the nids are lacking the most, the way to play them is fine but with that "revamping" they would just be awesome.

I know there was a lot of work to actually create that race from scratch and i have to say thank you since i mostly play the great devourers.

Is it possible or this is way out of reaches for some reasons?

To add to TheGreatGargoth's suggestion about Biovores, after playing a 2v2 against Standard AI Nids with a friend, the only thing that kept us from winning was Biovore spam. Not even the Carnifex spam was a problem, it just the sheer amount of AoE artillery those bastards throw at you.

The splash damage is ridiculous and 10x more effective than Basilisks, as they can take out a squad of infantry faster it takes for a Basilisk to load up an Earthshaker round. (Mind you, the other artillery piece you can produce in later IG tech tiers is somewhat more effective, but Biovores are available early ingame if I am not mistaken! Correct me if I'm wrong!)

Nids would be a lot less of a pain to versus if the AI didn't spam Biovores and annihilate my infantry, vehicles, and buildings with their massive AoE artillery. I suggest nerfing their damage, making the splash smaller, and perhaps even making their weapon's cooldown longer so they don't flood your base with green vomit.

On another note, I found that many of the Tyranid units that have both Ranged and Melee weapons were decent at fighting with both. The other day, a swarm of Raveners ported behind my defensive line on the Into the Breach map and tore my vehicles to pieces, then proceeded to slaughter my infantry. Though I can't remember if they massacred my Guardsmen in melee or at range, all I can say is that they (not specifically the Raveners, but all the dual purpose Nid units) shouldn't be able to excel at both.

Also, this is less of a suggestion but more of a comment my friend made on Nids the other day: "I don't see why tyranids need artillery when they can just overwhelm you with pure numbers."

Though I have played as Tyranids a few times, and I can't say that I didn't enjoy it. It's only painful if you're on the receiving end.

Edited by: Redshiftja

Let's just say that Tyranids in 1.72 are hands down totally different.

Critical bugs for Tyranids especially the f'ed up Hive Fleet functions was cured. In fact, they have their HQ back and you get the Hive Fleet later by... I will not spoil anymore.

AI... on 8 player maps... that bug where they build and build and build cannot be fixed so easily and I don't know WHY! I tried everything and I am sorry I cannot fix THAT specifiic bug, but they still do well on 8p maps (if they get lucky).

So other than that ^^

AI... IMPROVED! That Spinegaunt spam of lag and more lag bug was cured, best of all, Tyranids were given a new tech tree for that extra uummph. I really enjoy that. Right, the Hive Fleet requirments (Y I NO SEE?) glitch was cured, you can actually see the requirements of the research now.

Beeping noises... fixed.

Superweapons... more in number, balanced. Many balance changes, and the entire gameplay was revamped.

The annoying green GUO FX was reworked so it does not lag the screen anymore and no longer leaves a crummy crater. OP turrets... FIXED. And those who complained about the loud sounds and some beeps... I cannot find any, very good, very good.

Some other unfortunate things in the mod like the Hive Tyrant morale glitch where he does not ever take a hit near buildings... FIXED. Hive Tyrant super fast speed bug, FIXED. Hive Tyrant... NERFED. Hive Tyrant... no longer OP.

Buildings no longer decrease the cost of its own structure into the negatives. Spore Chimney and Reclamation Pools coding reworked and no longer game winning. On top of that the Tyranids builder unit is no longer a "hey, let's just go over here and build that there". That bug feature was removed.

Some balance changes like Raveners too were fixed. Warriors and Hive Tyrant devourer was buffed.

Now some things I noticed a long time ago:

Someone wrote: 4- Why Trygon can't use tunneling like raveners do?

Because he lacks the animation. I'd honestly have him not tunneling around then to see him appear from one location to the next. It is so stupid the Trygon does not have an animation for this, I know, but... it is this or that, and the team had a vote. Perhaps one day it will return.

Someone wrote: 5- Concerning Zoanthropes. Well, maybe reducing their HP 1/3 because it's true that they are very durable, even against a Terminator assault squad. Nice for the one who plays nids but quite frustrating for an SM player imho.

Ignored everything about Zoabnthropes. They are too low number in less than 20 minutes of gameplay and their cost is 120 requisition PER UNIT. For its cost, I am keeping it as is. Zoanthropes also have a weakness in melee combat like Biovores, except Biovores were gradually nerfed for reasons during my three games of frustration.

Someone wrote: Overhaul, nids are clearly op and the hive fleet and spinegaunt problems applies when you play against them too

Which 2.72 takes care of. I'm glad. Thanks for your feedback.

Right:

Bacl wrote: I m afraid to receive a thunder hammer in the face to even suggest that but hey i can recover after!
There are few other mods using the meshes and animations of the tyranids for DOW2, and these guy managed to to a Tyranoflex and Tervigon as last tier units ( they are awesome). I do think you guys have the best mod but that the thing the nids are lacking the most, the way to play them is fine but with that "revamping" they would just be awesome.

I know there was a lot of work to actually create that race from scratch and i have to say thank you since i mostly play the great devourers.

Is it possible or this is way out of reaches for some reasons?

This was initially created by the Tyranid mod team. The entire coding was revamped a little before the Grand Release and obviously, I apologize for all that. But anyways, DOW II models are illegal by us, we don't want any backporting, we do not want any trouble with Relicnews members or THQ in general. So we hope to avoid any copyright issues. It is a mod ban hammer, we will not take that risk, sorry.

THQ??? Maybe you mean SEGA?

I finally got an account.

Guest Apr 25 2013, 12:17am says: tyranids produce energy, but at the moment I can't see a unit which needs it.

Guest Apr 25 2013, 12:54am says: I found an other bug. If you build genestealers (broodlord), the broodlord is not able to upgrade any more. he is also able to build troops parallel to a running update. e.g. you can produce lictors in an endless loop AND genestealer for the broodlords unit at the same time.
But all the rest seems to be perfect!!
I have one request, could you remove the chaotic groundeffects, they spawn around the buildings, the fog is fine. And could you change the color of the tyranid nuke 1&2 into green, it has at the moment as well some chaos colors in it.

Lictor too strong in start game....low cost, hidden and too high requisition initial Tyranids. Pls Fix.

As for the first part, the power part is for team players. Ignore, feel free, this might actually be a FAQ.

Second part, nothing I can do. It effects the general, Tau Commanders, Tyranid Broodlord, etc. anybody in a squad who are commanders.

Third part, Chaosy ground effects, the Tyranid colors are not green. They are a bit of dark yellow, which hence is more... bio, so I could say. Green is not a preferred color yet.

Lictor was fixed.

Been working on Tyranids all day. The ai however... wtf happened?

I have noticed the Tyranids are quite the most OP race in the game when in the hands of a human player and not the ai one only needs to get one unit to your enemies base and just spam mouse click tryanid turrets everywhere they build themselves rather quickly are and extremely powerful and has one of the longest if not the longest range turrets in the game, it matters not what race you fight just send a small force to the enemy and just build turrets in and around thier base your enemies defenses would be quickly overwhelmed by the volume of turret strructures being built tthat they cant destroy them all, and by then 95% of those turrets are finished and attacking quickly decimating whatever enemy units remain as they hammer away at all their structures resulting in a quick cheap ass victory for the tyranids.

Solution tryanid turret build time needs to be longer or the turrets need to have no armor and very easily destroyed or the cost to produce them should out way the cost any other races turrets

Edited by: aundrekaneshiro

Good solution.

that or their damage needs to be NERFED

The Tyranid Titan Hierophant needs a buff its a waste of resources really ,Ranged fire isn't that good when up on infantry its easily shot down by turret's alone its pitiful I never thought of bringing it up but since I play with them more now They need that.
Tyranids deserve a thumbs up but that titan....why is it their???? you can decimate anyone and not miss it theirs no reason to use it.

Hope i wasn't rude just saying I kinda feel that titan has no place

the Biovores need a nerf in ranage. they are ust too much. they also do splash damage.

The Tyranids need some sort of dedicated builder unit. As it stands, the ability to build anything anywhere, in any quantity, makes them totally game breaking when faced off against any other race.

Their building method is an interesting idea, but it sets them too far apart from the rest of the races, which is a blessing and a curse in my eyes. And even if you manage to achieve end game units, there is very little you can actually do when the entire map is flooded with gaunt hives and turrets.

I'm not an advanced player, so maybe I'm missing something that I've just overlooked, but whenever Tyranids are involved in a multiplayer game, I've never seen the other side win among those I play with. Even when in the hands of a total newcomer.

I'm sorry I've got a bit of a sour tone. I really do love this mod, but we just dont play with the extra races version any more because there is no fighting against Tyranids due to their build mechanics. The best suggestion I can really give, is to let them have a dedicated builder unit (like everyone else) or at least limit how many structures can be built simultaneously (like everyone else, in the form of a builder unit limit).

Edit: So far, the only "effective" counter I've found for this is to flood the map with guardsmen, or any other massive mob of weak infantry, so that there is simply no free space for the 'nids to build on.

Edited by: CatDragon