Dear CA,

We thank you for the effort and dedication that you showed with the many key changes in 6.1, which have resolved many of the major trouble-makers in MP. With Patch 6.1 out now we want to provide you another quick overview over the most pressing issues regarding the current meta as well as some prevailing issues that have impacted MP for some time. We will be back with an update to the full list spanning all races once we have compiled enough feedback. 

Alongside the focused nature of this list we will try to provide a bit more context to each suggestion this time around - outlining why we feel a certain way about a unit, what has been successful in solving the issue in our testing and how it all fits into the larger picture of factionwide balance. If this is something you find helpful be sure to let us know!

As we have before, the Total Tavern and Vermin League discord communities, together with many talented players from all over the MP and TW community have compiled open source, peer-reviewed and tested balance and bug fix recommendations to enhance Warhammer III Multiplayer battles. We work with both the Domination, Land Battle and the new and emerging Conquest communities as well with the help and technical insights of our resident modders to suggest solutions that work across the game modes and improve balance for Warhammer 3.

Thanks for continuing to support Warhammer multiplayer! Our goal is to make balancing this game as easy and low risk for you as possible. 

-Catholic Alcoholic (editor)

Top (revised) MP Balance Issues for Patch 6.2+:

Ogre Kingdoms

Ogre Kingdoms are currently overperforming due to the Thundertusk which remains too strong, especially in combination with the healing from Meat Feast. Ogre Kingdoms also generate army ability points too quickly after the rework.

Thundertusk: -8 speed & -500 HP. Reduce Unit Cap to 1. The Thundertusk is still too strong currently due to its many different perks. On TT the Thundertusk was slower than the Stonehorn and had the same amount of wounds, whereas in TW it is just as fast and has significantly more HP than the Stonehorn. Both of these stats in particular are also very helpful for balancing the most egregious aspects of the Thundertusk: Reduced speed would make it easier to catch and addresses the chariot-like usage of its collision attacks, while a HP nerf would weaken its tankiness and overall healing potential through Trollguts and Meat Feast. Limiting the maximum amount of Thundertusks per army to 1 via unit caps is also necessary to prevent SEM stat checking.

Piggyback Knights RoR: +50g and +1 MD. The Piggyback Knights receive a multitude of very powerful upgrades over the already too strong base unit, for a small price. They are also missing 1 MD from their rank 9 stats.

Meat Feast: Either reduce the healing to 1.4% per second or reduce the vigour replenishment to -1% per second. Meat Feast remains an overly strong army ability due to combining one of the strongest heals in the game with additional vigour replenishment. Either reducing the overall healing or limiting the overall vigour gained would prevent SEMs gaining too many advantages at once and would also make other Ogre Kingdom army abilities such as Massacre more relevant.

Ogre Kingdoms Army Abilities: Reduce the currency income amount from 0.1 to 0.09. Ogre Kingdoms generate army ability points too quickly after the rework, allowing them to use their very powerful healing ability too often during a game, which further increases the power level of already very strong centerpiece units like the Thundertusk. Reducing the amount of points gained by 10% would help to alleviate this issue.

Slaanesh

This time around we are suggesting a couple nerfs to the newly improved daemonic Slaanesh cavalry, that has seen performance increases after the buffs to Heartseekers and the model hitbox changes in 5.3. After these changes the Slaaneshi daemonic cavalry deals tremendous amounts of damage, especially to surrounded single entities, and should be toned down a little bit to make them not too cost-effective.

Seekers of Slaanesh: Increase the radii ratio of wh3_main_sla_cavalry_steed_of_slaanesh_blood mounts to 0.35. Performs a bit too well after it received hitbox changes in 5.3 and requires tweaks to the width of the Steed of Slaanesh mounts via a slight increase to the radii ratio.

Tomb Kings

Sphinxes still perform too well and overshadow other constructs in the Tomb King roster. Reducing turn speed is a key change to allow more counterplay.

Khemrian Warsphinx: Reduce turn speed to 60. The Khemrian Warsphinx currently overperforms into its direct counters such as Cold One cavalry, partially due to being able to chain attack animations very fast through its high turn speed. Reducing turn speed to 60 would bring the Warsphinx more in line with other collision attack SEMs such as the stonehorn as well as reducing performance into cavalry and large units by a sufficient amount.

Necrosphinx & The Sphinx of Usekph RoR: Reduce turn speed to 60. Still perform too well after receiving multiple buffs, reducing turn speed would open up more counterplay and allows the Necrosphinx to focus more on its duellist role.

Dwarfs

Dwarf Hero blobs remain too strong while they enjoy the benefits of perfect vigour through the Rune of Hearth & Home, which should either be removed from Thorek Ironbrow in the MP ability selection or be adjusted accordingly.

Rune of Hearth & Home: Replace the vigour replenishment effect with a scalar_bracing value of 2 or remove this ability from Thorek Ironbrow in the MP ability selection. Due to the currently used vigour replenishment value the Rune of Hearth & Home essentially imbues perfect vigour, which is a far too powerful effect in a passive 55m AoE on top of imbuing Immune to Psychology. Replacing the vigour effect with a scalar_bracing/Charge Resistance effect would be more accurate to TT and more in line with the uncommon power rating of the ability. Alternatively removing this ability from Thorek Ironbrow who is currently the strongest Dwarf Lord in MP would also solve the issue.

Khorne

Wrathmongers are currently far too strong after their splash attacks got fixed and reactivated, due to knocking down enemy infantry models and therefore preventing them from making attacks. Reducing splash power by 50% didn't fix this issue sufficiently.

Wrathmongers: Remove splash attacks (remove splash attack target size entry) or -10 MD and -5 WS. Wrathmongers saw a massive performance jump after the splash fixes and are currently trading significantly upwards into almost any unit in the game, including monstrous infantry and SEMs. Their infantry performance is especially impacted by the impact force tied to their splash attacks, which causes infantry models to fall down and prevents them from dealing any damage back. Removing splash attacks would bring them closer to their original launch state, which should be a balanced spot after receiving Immune to Flanking and a HP buff, without having to balance around the broken infantry interactions caused by the impact force from the splash attacks.

Beastmen

Beastmen are still overperforming. Reworking Centigor entity radii ratio values would return them to their previously more balanced performance state. The listed price changes should only be applied if the radii ratio for Centigors is adjusted, in order to slightly compensate for the damage loss.

Centigor Cavalry:

Increase the radii ratio of wh_dlc03_bst_cav_centigor_blood and wh2_dlc17_centigor_groghooves_blood mounts to 0.5. Perform a bit too well after they received hitbox changes in 5.3 and require tweaks to the width of the centigor mounts via a slight increase to the radii ratio.

Price adjustments if radii ratio is changed:

Centigors: -50g.

Centigors Great Weapons: -100g.

Centigors of Tzeentch: -100g.

Sons of Ghorros RoR: -50g.

Centigors Throwing Axes & Groghooves of Wolf’s Run RoR: No cost changes.

Gor Herd (Dual Weapons): -2 non-AP WS. Performs far better than similarly priced infantry units and needs a nerf. This does not apply to the shielded variant!

Lizardmen

Since the Dread Saurian gained collision attacks in 5.1 it has become a bit too powerful, especially against factions with low leadership. Nerfing the double Leadership penalty from small arms and artillery fire would make this unit a bit more interactive.

Dread Saurian: Change the wh2_main_lzd_mon_stegadon_giant_blowpipe projectile to misc and small_arm_default. The Dread Saurian currently applies multiple Leadership penalties, due to both incurring the small arms fire penalty via the javelin skink riders, as well as the artillery fire penalty via the giant blowpipe. Changing the blowpipe to a small arm fire projectile would help prevent the stacking of multiple Leadership penalties.

Wood Elves

Small nerf to Arrow of Kurnous to slightly reduce faction power level in Domination.

Arrow of Kurnous: +50g and set projectile penetration to medium_6. The Arrow of Kurnous still does too many things at once at a moderate price. Increasing the price to 200g and reducing penetration against infantry would make it more appropriate.

Bugs/miscellaneous issues

The Dreadquake Mortar’s minimum range is bugged when combined with an Iron Daemon or The Daemon’s Tongue. The Dreadquake Mortar is supposed to have a minimum range of 60, but this minimum range is overridden by the minimum range value of the Iron Daemon’s projectile. This allows the Dreadquake Mortar trains to fire automatically onto their own position, causing massive damage to any unit that is trying to surround it.

Line of sight issues are heavily impacting gameplay. Line of sight issues continue to impact ranged units, causing them to move into melee or refusing to fire, which makes ranged gameplay very frustrating.

Units with fire whilst moving are again impacted by a previously fixed bug that prevents them from firing. This bug was fixed in 5.3 but has reappeared in 6.0: “Fixed an issue where ranged units with the ability to shoot while moving would sometimes not fire when repositioned. Additionally, addressed instances where they experienced significant delays in firing due to misaligned ticks.”

Several units lack appropriate unit caps. Currently bugged unit caps: Stonehorn Harpoon Launcher (doesn’t count as a Stonehorn variant). Sky-Striders RoR (doesn’t count as a Crushers Great Weapons variant). The Cold-Voider RoR (doesn’t count as a Chaos Frost Dragon). Marauder Ice Wolf Chariots (falsely count as Units with 360 Degree Firing Arc).

Some units that have the Terror attribute lack the Causes Fear attribute:

Amblepeak Greybacks RoR
Thundertusk

Factions belonging to the Savage Orc subculture do not gain access to the Waaagh! army ability in MP & custom battle. The currently bugged factions are: Top Knotz, Skull-takerz, Blue Vipers and Dimmed Sunz.

The Daemon Prince of Nurgle has animation issues that prevent him from hitting small enemies in the air. The responsible animation set is hu10e_dlc20_daemon_prince_2h_noarmoury.

Some units still have suboptimal/bugged splash max targets. After the splash fixes from the recent hotfix there are still a number of units that require some splash max target tweaks. The following list of units will be updated over time:

Toad Dragon: Increase to 9 splash max targets. Has some matched animations with more splash zones than the current max target value (dr05_toad_matched_attack_01, dr05_toad_matched_attack_02). Collision attack values can stay the same.

Target intercept ranges for passive abilities should be displaying the same target range UI as spells and active abilities when hovering over their ability card. Abilities with a passive target intercept range (i.e. a condition that activates when enemy units are in/outside a specific range) such as Carrion Frenzy, Bugman’s XXXXXX, Hawkish Precision and Guardians of the Wildwood.

Spell Changes:

This time around we are focusing on nerfing Flock of Doom, Usirian’s Incantation of Vengeance, Flensing Ruin and Pavane of Slaanesh, which are significantly overperforming. Reducing the time between casting and damage application for spells with both a high wind-up time and long spell animation would make a lot of unusable centerpiece spells viable in MP, since they are currently far too easy to dodge. 

Flock of Doom: Increase cooldown by +15s to 45s total and 0/+1 WoM to 6/13. Flock of Doom is currently too effective when spammed. Increasing the cooldown would drastically slow down the impact of the spell.

Usirian's Incantation of Vengeance: -2s duration to 22s total. A duration nerf would bring it more in line with other direct damage spells.

Flensing Ruin: +50g and -2s/-4s duration to 22s/34s total. Still more WoM-efficient than comparable spells considering the additional armour debuff, which should be solved by duration decreases to limit the amount of burst damage. Also does not pay the standard 200g for a rare spell.

Pavane of Slaanesh: Split the spell into two phases, an initial phase that applies the direct damage and vigour penalty, and a secondary phase that triggers later with the rampage effect. Pavane is currently the best spell in the game, applying almost as much direct damage as some dedicated damage spells such as Fate of Bjuna, while also debuffing vigour (and therefore incurring major stat penalties), on top of a very long rampage effect. Rampage is one of the most powerful debuffs in the game, and due to taking away any agency it is very frustrating to play against in its current state. Splitting the spell in two phases would nerf each of the individual effects of the spell to a more reasonable level, while also allowing more counterplay for the enemy due to a longer time to react with targeted unit.

Here’s a possible example of how this could be executed, with a 10s initial phase (nerfing the direct damage and vigour effect by quite a bit) and 14s/28s rampage phase afterwards. In order to keep the spell focused on its unique rampage aspect the nerfs to the direct damage are larger, while the rampage phase is only marginally shorter than it was previously. For the upgraded spell version the direct damage per tick is doubled instead of increasing the direct damage phase duration, since a longer delay before the secondary rampage phase activates will be quite punishing for using the spell primarily as a rampage snare.

Blight Boil, Slicing Shards, Vangheist’s Revenge, Fiery Convocation: Reduce wind-up time by -2s or start a portion of the spell wind-up animation/composite scene during the wind-up time. These spells deliver a lot of damage, but are nearly unusable in Multiplayer due to their combined wind-up time of 5s and additional long spell animation time, which makes them far too dodgeable. As a comparison most other high-end spells such as vortex spells tend to apply damage 5s after the cast, while these spells require roughly 10s after the cast is issued before damage is applied. With a reduction of wind up time by -2s these spells would become a lot more viable, while still allowing ample counterplay. 

Reducing WoM cost or increasing damage unfortunately are unlikely to solve the root cause of the problem and also would affect campaign balance negatively, whereas cast time reductions would be a massive improvement for MP while keeping campaign performance largely untouched. 

An alternative solution would be to follow the example of spells such as Foot of Gork or Hell Hammer, with the spell animation being started during the windup. In that case there should however still be a trigger delay for the composite scene, so that the time between casting and damage being dealt equals roughly 8s (i.e. the Fiery Convocation composite scene should be started with a 3s trigger delay upon the cast being issued by the player in order to equal a -2s wind-up time reduction).

Vigour modifiers:

Allow UI to display decimal values for vigour modifying effects and reduce key overperforming vigour reduction auras. This is a very important adjustment to make current and future vigour modifying effects balanced. Since the UI cannot properly display any decimal points for vigour modifiers the lowest possible value is capped at -1% vigour per second. This however is still equivalent to 300 fatigue points - almost 10 times as much as the highest fatigue factor and dwarfing the fatigue penalty of combat, which is only accumulating 19 fatigue points per second.

This effectively means that any vigour reduction aura becomes a perfect vigour aura instead of just a moderate reduction of vigour gained over time. Considering how impactful fatigue penalties are this results in significant overperformance through passive vigour reduction auras such as the Solar Engine or Thorek Ironbrow’s Rune of Hearth and Home. A healthy value for these auras would be around -0,3% vigour per second, which still significantly outpaces natural fatigue gains but would not allow a unit to be fully replenished from exhausted to fresh in less than 2 minutes.

Domination Changes:

Resummoned units should not retain abilities gained in past lives. Currently resummoned units still keep their ability intensity charges that they gained in their past lives. This can lead to overperformance in certain cases such as Blood Vultures, and makes balancing between the different modes harder. The newly added Reset Intensity in Reinforcement Pool entry in special_ability_intensity_settings_tables seems to be supposed to fix this issue, however it is currently non-functional and doesn’t reset intensity settings once a unit enters the reinforcement pool.

Increase capture weight by +2 for certain elite infantry units. Elite Infantry is currently additionally weakened by their very inefficient cap weight to cost ratio, on top of being one of the weaker unit archetypes in general. Slightly increasing the capture weight for the elite infantry units listed below would be a welcome first step to make this unit type more appealing. This change should be limited to only elite infantry! Other unit categories such as elite cavalry, monstrous infantry and single entities are currently doing well and don’t require capture weight changes.

List of elite infantry that should receive more capture weight:

Infernal Ironsworn (and RoR)
Exalted Plaguebearers of Nurgle (and RoR)
Exalted Bloodletters of Khorne (and RoR)
Exalted Daemonettes of Slaanesh (and RoR)
Exalted Pink Horrors of Tzeentch (and RoR)
Har Garneth Executioners (and RoR)
Black Guard of Naggarond
Hammerers (and RoR)
Giant Slayers
Ironbreakers (and RoR)
Celestial Dragon Guard (and RoR)
Swordmasters of Hoeth
Phoenix Guard (and RoR)
Skullreapers
Temple Guard (and RoR)
Chosen (all variants and marks)
Depth Guard (all variants and RoR)
Bladesingers

Conquest Changes:

Fix replays bugging out for matches that weren’t played with the default ticket limit. Replays currently suffer from an issue where games played with custom ticket limits are bugged, ending either too soon when the ticket limit was higher than the default setting, or not ending too late when the game was played with a shorter ticket limit. This is especially annoying for casting replays from tournaments with custom rules.

​

Sagez#6761 wrote:

Before I'll write more, is there any chance that you'll leave the Dread Saurian alone and focus on more important issues?

as far as I know there isn't any dreaded Dread Saurian meta.

How about changes to Lords that are almost never used? Or maybe nerfs to stuff that is always used?

Yeah, that’s the issue I wish got more attention. In multiplayer, around 50% of all units and abilities are never used, which really limits variety in the game. As a result, certain tactics become completely unviable. The game suffers because of this, missing out on more strategic options it could have. And the solution is really simple too—just buff the stuff that’s underwhelming and nerf the stuff that’s overpowered lol

Also Juggernaut mounts are much better after they received some buffs, but they still kinda suck. I tested them and found that changing their Radii ratio to 0.4 (so the same value as Rhinox mounts) seems to finally make them ok. My testing was based on a duel between Skullcrushers and Bear Riders, and before the change, they got crushed. After the change, they were able to win like 60-70% of the time. I think that's a good balance for a unit that is more expensive and belongs to the pure melee faction.