Outriders look woefully underpowered in early access footage

Darthplagueis13#4382

Greenskin Schemer

5 900g2g pts

17 days ago

Apr 24, 2024, 10:47:19 PM

For those who don't know, they basic Outriders are set to get an overhaul in the patch accompanying Thrones of Decay which will replace their current handguns with Repeater Handguns.

On paper, this sounds like a good thing that would make them more lethal and give people a reason to even consider picking them over the Grenade Launcher variant. And their stats do look impressive at first, with their listed Missile Strength having gone up to 37 from the previous 30.

But here's the thing:

1: If you know how missile strength works, you'll be aware that this stat doesn't actually reflect the damage per projectile. Missile strength is the damage a ranged unit can be presumed to inflict with its shots within a ten second period, so the way the missile strength stat works is: 10 seconds divided by the reload time, times the various missile damage types (ap, non-ap, ap explosive, non-ap explosive) times the amount of projectiles fired by a model with every volley.

This means: The missile strength stat on the unit card is massively increased for units that reload faster than ten seconds and for units that fire more than a single projectile per volley.

I am inclined to believe that the new Outriders are both. They fire at least 3 projectiles per volley and they have a reload speed of maybe 4-5 seconds. Meaning, if we break those 37 missile strength down, there is a good chance that they actually deal less than 10 damage per hit. Which in turn means that they would really need to actually hit most of their shots to actually deal good damage, but here's the issue: They don't.

In every test and replay and campaign battle I have seen that featured Outriders, they missed what felt like more than half of each volley and dealt absolutely pityful damage. I just finished watching a game where they fired at a unit of Marauder Horsemen of Khorne and just by the pityful amount of damage they dealt, I first thought they had hit Chaos Knights instead. They dealt about as much damage to the Horsemen than the current live version of the unit might deal to Chaos Knights. It feels like they consistently overshoot their target, no matter if it is infantry, cavalry or monstrous. if the air surrounding their prospective targets had a healthbar, the targets would probably die from suffocation instead of bullet wounds.

It feels like the ballistic arc for their shots changed but they way they aim their weapons didn't.

Unless that gets fixed before or during launch, Outriders without Grenade Launchers are going to disappear into obscurity and be replaced with Pistoleers, which at this point are just better in every single way. Even though their ap sucks, they are going to deal better damage against most targets because they can actually hit them. Not to mention that they have 360° fire whilst moving and are a bit cheaper.

On a side note, the fire whilst moving on Outriders is mostly pointless. There's no point in bringing a 700 gold unit just for chasing doing fleeing opponents and you aren't ever going to charge them into melee unless they've ran out of ammo. They would be much better off having 360° firing without fire whilst moving, that would actually let them kite some opponents because their need to first turn around to shoot at what's following them basically means they barely ever have time to shoot before the enemy gets dangerously close.

Updated 17 days ago.

KolfinnrCZ#1795

Newcomer

KolfinnrCZ#1795

Newcomer

16 days ago

Apr 25, 2024, 9:51:26 PM

Very true, I've used them in Gelt army to bait and/or harass ogres.

I think they are meant to be like a mobile handgunner unit, nothing above. Which is weird IMO as unit looks like it can do more than that.

Enforest#2212

Nameless

Enforest#2212

Nameless

15 days ago

Apr 27, 2024, 4:23:28 AM

Sorry, we can't have good skirmisher units because MP turds find it hard to counter them :(

BaronRodney#9956

Defender

BaronRodney#9956

Defender

15 days ago

Apr 27, 2024, 6:10:11 AM

Darthplagueis13#4382 wrote:
if the air surrounding their prospective targets had a healthbar, the targets would probably die from suffocation instead of bullet wounds.

You have a way with words. I'll remember this line, still making me laugh

Biggles#4266

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Biggles#4266

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2 500g2g pts

14 days ago

Apr 27, 2024, 10:57:31 AM

Enforest#2212 wrote:
Sorry, we can't have good skirmisher units because MP turds find it hard to counter them :(

Not that I've played multiplayer but do you have any basis for this little rant? Just a few posts as evidence? Also no need to be a foul mouth is there?

Anyway it does suck in the videos I've seen that they can't seem to hit the side of a barn. Guessing they may be useful against large entities but if that's all it sucks.

GreenColoured#3418

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GreenColoured#3418

Nameless

14 days ago

Apr 27, 2024, 11:04:22 AM

It's clearly just a calibration error from the videos released so far.

It's pretty hard to miss so I expect CA will fix it eventually

Enforest#2212

Nameless

Enforest#2212

Nameless

14 days ago

Apr 27, 2024, 7:05:10 PM

Biggles#4266 wrote:
Enforest#2212 wrote:
Sorry, we can't have good skirmisher units because MP turds find it hard to counter them :(
Not that I've played multiplayer but do you have any basis for this little rant? Just a few posts as evidence? Also no need to be a foul mouth is there?

Anyway it does suck in the videos I've seen that they can't seem to hit the side of a barn. Guessing they may be useful against large entities but if that's all it sucks.

That's because skirmishers and related stuff (like poison) got heavily nerfed over the course of WH2 to the point of becoming a meme, as dealing with skirmishers was frustrating for people with bad skill.

Now they are worthless in the campaign, unless you boost their stats to a ridicilous level with Oxyotl or Snikch.

In conclusion, micro-demanding units suck in campaign (literally no point in kiting AI when you can just kill them with normal missile units outright), while it's also full of stupid I-win buttons and zero-effort doomstacks. That's the duality of TWW: catering to MP pseudo-pros is just as bad as catering to dudebros who like powercreep and OP stuff.

Biggles#4266

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Biggles#4266

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2 500g2g pts

14 days ago

Apr 27, 2024, 8:05:07 PM

Enforest#2212 wrote:
Biggles#4266 wrote:
Enforest#2212 wrote:
Sorry, we can't have good skirmisher units because MP turds find it hard to counter them :(
Not that I've played multiplayer but do you have any basis for this little rant? Just a few posts as evidence? Also no need to be a foul mouth is there?

Anyway it does suck in the videos I've seen that they can't seem to hit the side of a barn. Guessing they may be useful against large entities but if that's all it sucks.
That's because skirmishers and related stuff (like poison) got heavily nerfed over the course of WH2 to the point of becoming a meme, as dealing with skirmishers was frustrating for people with bad skill.

Now they are worthless in the campaign, unless you boost their stats to a ridicilous level with Oxyotl or Snikch.

In conclusion, micro-demanding units suck in campaign (literally no point in kiting AI when you can just kill them with normal missile units outright), while it's also full of stupid I-win buttons and zero-effort doomstacks. That's the duality of TWW: catering to MP pseudo-pros is just as bad as catering to dudebros who like powercreep and OP stuff.

So your saying people playing multiplayer made CA nerf skirmishing units. Was it just from the data they got from people's games or was there a campaign by the multiplayer people? I'm not following how you know it's because the game has a multiplayer mode.

Could it have been that single player is where they got the data to do it from? Where's your evidence to jump to this conclusion please?

Enforest#2212

Nameless

Enforest#2212

Nameless

14 days ago

Apr 27, 2024, 9:01:50 PM

Biggles#4266 wrote:
Enforest#2212 wrote:
Biggles#4266 wrote:
Enforest#2212 wrote:
Sorry, we can't have good skirmisher units because MP turds find it hard to counter them :(
Not that I've played multiplayer but do you have any basis for this little rant? Just a few posts as evidence? Also no need to be a foul mouth is there?

Anyway it does suck in the videos I've seen that they can't seem to hit the side of a barn. Guessing they may be useful against large entities but if that's all it sucks.
That's because skirmishers and related stuff (like poison) got heavily nerfed over the course of WH2 to the point of becoming a meme, as dealing with skirmishers was frustrating for people with bad skill.

Now they are worthless in the campaign, unless you boost their stats to a ridicilous level with Oxyotl or Snikch.

In conclusion, micro-demanding units suck in campaign (literally no point in kiting AI when you can just kill them with normal missile units outright), while it's also full of stupid I-win buttons and zero-effort doomstacks. That's the duality of TWW: catering to MP pseudo-pros is just as bad as catering to dudebros who like powercreep and OP stuff.
So your saying people playing multiplayer made CA nerf skirmishing units. Was it just from the data they got from people's games or was there a campaign by the multiplayer people? I'm not following how you know it's because the game has a multiplayer mode.

Could it have been that single player is where they got the data to do it from? Where's your evidence to jump to this conclusion please?

Go through WH2 blogs and see the changes for yourself. You might also be interested in cringy unofficial "tournament" rules where it was stated that players should not explicitly use skirmishers and "abuse" forests and etc. What was the point of nerfing skirmishers based on SP data when barely anyone used them (besides the Eshin troops bug when their projectiles had "artillery" type and overperformed, but that was quickly fixed after WH2 release).

GreenColoured#3418

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GreenColoured#3418

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14 days ago

Apr 27, 2024, 9:23:40 PM

Enforest#2212 wrote:
Now they are worthless in the campaign, unless you boost their stats to a ridicilous level with Oxyotl or Snikch.

That's called a skill issue bruh. You can literally wipe out an army in WH2 with a few units of Ellyrian Reavers as the AI is utterly incapable of handling player controlled ranged units of any kind, let alone ones that can run while shooting.

Ironically it's in MP where skirmish cavalry doesn't dominate nearly as hard as players actually know how to deal with them.

Just because you can't use them doesn't mean others are that bad with them.

Enforest#2212

Nameless

Enforest#2212

Nameless

14 days ago

Apr 27, 2024, 9:46:28 PM

GreenColoured#3418 wrote:
Enforest#2212 wrote:
Now they are worthless in the campaign, unless you boost their stats to a ridicilous level with Oxyotl or Snikch.
That's called a skill issue bruh. You can literally wipe out an army in WH2 with a few units of Ellyrian Reavers as the AI is utterly incapable of handling player controlled ranged units of any kind, let alone ones that can run while shooting.

Ironically it's in MP where skirmish cavalry doesn't dominate nearly as hard as players actually know how to deal with them.

Just because you can't use them doesn't mean others are that bad with them.

Why would I want to do it when I can just spam basic archers and wipe out AI much faster and with less effort? Did you even read my whole post or just instantly jumped with the NPC "skill issue" response?

Jarms48#7854

Elector Count

Jarms48#7854

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