Also i wonder why some marines have the "Evaluate Target" ability. I do anderstand that this ability helps a lot because after gaining 12k exp this marine gains 50+% crit and becomes irreplaceable one. But after gaining a marine with "Evaluate Target" you dont need any other marine except the one who have it. I see no scence to spend time and effort on any other marine because marine with "Evaluate Target" will always be better, because there is no any other ability that can compare with "Evaluate Target". I have found similar ability: "Battle Brothers". But it can be compared only in case of the 5 untramarines party, long exp gain and gives you only 20% crit (that is taken from acuracy) and not 40% (and IV ultramarine-tactical does not have "Battle Brothers" ability but have useless "SteadFast" and he becomes vary-vary-vary useless in battle). I have managed to complete 5 good untramarines party only at the end of the heroic campaign (3 weeks of play ).
That damage looks about right, taking Crit into account. It's about using what you have at the time and as you progress, upgrading. You're towards the end game so finding marines that aren't as good as your hardened squad is going to be expected. We can't stick all of the best abilities on all of the marines, other wise there would literally be no reason to pick anything else to fill another role within your squad. We're looking at abilities and things so if we find anything that we want to rebalance, we'll do it in the upcoming patches.
Ok, i'll count: I have damage 117-126-135-ххх-xxx on the heroic mob with 400 xp. Max bolter damage is 62. I have four +15% bolter damage improvements. 62 damage is divided on 5 bolts. Lets take 100% crit. Here comes the damage per bolt: 12,4 *1,15*1,15*1,15*1,15 = 21,7 (bolt + improvements) 21.7 * 3(bolter crit damage) = 65.1 So 1 (one) bolt can have max 65.1 damage and damage must look like 65-65-65-65-65, while i have strange numbers like 117-126-135-ххх-xxx. There were no any other improvements on damamage on test image. Except the "+15% bolter damage". It does not look "about right". That's the point: there is no reason to use any other marine, except the one that has Evaluate Target. I play 5 ultramarine team atm only because i like them... and because they can get a free +20% crit in future. I have 27 lvl IV apothecary. He is totaly useless. Nearly No damage, bad poor heal. While 3 Rite of Ultramarine seals heal on 50 hp each turn every marine.
It is vary difficult to capture damage while your turn. So 117-126-135-ххх-xxx was on the enemy turn. But here are some screens: (on one screen there is damage 20-20-90-99-xx )
Actually, after some recent testing, Rite of Ultramar does seem to stack, just the green heal numbers are incorrect. The other 5% self-heal comes at the end of the turn, while the Rite of Ultramar heal comes at the beginning of the turn.
The first thing I see that's strikes me as odd is the displayed weapon damage. I never noticed before that it changes if your marine has that weapon as a specialty. The problem is that 64-78 is not a 15% increase from 52-62 (which is more like a 24% increase in moloc's gift's base damage). I check this with my wolf guard wielding frostbite, and the displayed damage is also oddly inflated (55-67 increased to 69-83, also a ~24% increase). FYI my wolf guard was not using any rites of the marksman. If we use this oddly buffed damage value as base damage after the marines built in "15% bonus," and multiply by 1.15 3 times, multiply by 300% dmg for crit and divide by 5 for # of volleys, the most dmg one shell should do is 71. If we assume that for whatever reason that 15% bonuses are acting as 24% bonuses, the highest dmg # you should see is ~89 for any one shell. Perhaps there is a bug with the skill Killing Blow for multi-volley guns? Or maybe you're getting more damage from some of those buffs on your marine. I'm not sure what all of them are. Is there any chance you have an Oath of Angels or Glory of Sanguinnius active from on of your other Blood Angels?
It is all about balance 1) Some marines are MUCH MORE powerfull than the others. If you have a marine with Evaluate Target you will never change it on any other marine. 2) Some weapons (or abilities) are totaly useless, like melta guns (big or small) - it is all about math. I realy like this game and i want it to be perfect, i want to complete it (from normal to heroic) as many times as i can collect new marine parties.
Tier 4 Firescream Melta is very useful with a good marine (eg my t4 tactical Sternguard Blood Angel). If you're not into buying packs and have to make do with card and pack drops weapons like this can be very effective even on Heroic.
I agree that meltas do have someusefulness. Meltas tend to have higher than average accuracy at their tier, and I used Illumination (t3 melta gun) to train a few of my tactical marines as they were just starting out. Also, firescream is the second highest damage per shot. Frostbite within half range is the highest damage per shot tactical weapon (and it can fire out to range 6); at ranges 4 and 5, firescream is superior.
As a practical matter, it seems like tactical marines just don't hold their weight in heroic compared to tricked out Assault Marines like the Lone Wolf or Devastators like the Long Fang. At least that is what it seems like to me. My Space Wolf team rolls through heroic missions as if they were EZ mode, while my Ultramarine team plods along (admittedly I don't have the Master of Relics) - it just seems like the damage output for Space Wolves (and assault marines and Devs) is out of proportion to tac marines (or marines in other chapters).
I agree. Sadly I still have only one T4 (I am in act 2 heroic), but I found my T3 blood angel tactical kicks ass with this weapon as he has +40% permanent crit. It would take the Sternguard an awful lot of grinding to get to this critical chance.
I think only two marines have Evaluate Target: Lone wolf and the BA tactical champion. I don't mind it on Lone Wolf: He's tier 4, and he still has to close on the target to get the most use of it. Though there's Charge and Feral Agility and Urus' Word ... mostly it's that he's 4th tier. Evaluate Target isn't so bad with most of the tactical weapons - but a few of the high-level bolters have 20%+ crit. It gets nasty fast. And then there's Kraken Breath: 50% critical. I wonder if Evaluate Target was one of the traits removed from the SW tactical champion. He's got a flamer specialization, after all. Plus Killing Blow and, to top it off, Free Fire. I can really imagine how that could make the game look "broken." It could be argued that any problem lies with the high critical chances of a few weapons ... but I'd rather see Evaluate Target moved from the BA tactical champion to the Sanguinary Priest. I agree he could use a boost.
I think that Evaluate Target should totaly be removed from all the marines because it is not fair that some marines make a lot more damage than the others and you will always choose marines with Evaluate Target and will farm them. (40% crit as similar to 20 levels and you get this improvement nearly for free - for 12k xp) My team on heroic was: LW, LW, III BA tactical, III BA tactical, UM Devastator. Devastator was just a support to heal and shoot sometimes. And for this team heroic was just like veteran - no problem and nearly no challenge. Can someone provide a screen of the IV tactical Sternguard Blood Angel damage (he was droped to me only yesterday) with IV melta gun on heroic? I wonder if it can rival with III BA tactical. I know for sure after completing heroic: III BA tactical makes 400-600 damage per shot with Moloc's Gift and four +15% damage improvements.
