Competitive Top Tier Armys

[Forrix]

I'd encourage people to actually watch the Honest Wargammer's stat show on YouTube/Twitch. He and LLV go over the limitations of their data and what can and can not be taken from it. LLV in particular seems very knowledgeable about statistics. Short version- don't taken them as "omg nerf everything about faction x" but you also shouldn't just discard them.  

[Kevin K]

2 hours ago, prochuvi said:

I think is safe say free sumon is umbalanced (as every that is free)

The god tier and 2nd tier are all free sumon armys,only dok and idoneths are there without it(even idoneths have free sumon with trhalls coming back but i wont call them free sumon army).

I dont know nothing about khaos dwarf so i dont know where they are.

For me it is so easy how: 

get back free sumon only to opens play as allways have been

Nerf every dok aura to wholy within. 100 points hag queen and 120 wytches

Nerf idoneths eels

 

With those easy fix the meta gonna be so much balanced 

They have built in costs for all of what you are calling "free summon".  I actually really like the summoning systems that are in the game now.  You say that somehow this chart shows that "free summon" is unbalanced but there are summoning armies all through the list including true free summoning in Nurgle and Khorne both in the back half.  There are also plenty of non-summoning lists near the front.  I'm not sure what evidence you think that chart has that summoning in unbalanced.

That being said, there certainly are areas where the system and points probably need to be tweaked, just like all aspects of the game.  What makes AoS great is that they are doing that kind of thing on a regular basis.

[Ravinsild]

2 hours ago, Kevin K said:

They have built in costs for all of what you are calling "free summon".  I actually really like the summoning systems that are in the game now.  You say that somehow this chart shows that "free summon" is unbalanced but there are summoning armies all through the list including true free summoning in Nurgle and Khorne both in the back half.  There are also plenty of non-summoning lists near the front.  I'm not sure what evidence you think that chart has that summoning in unbalanced.

That being said, there certainly are areas where the system and points probably need to be tweaked, just like all aspects of the game.  What makes AoS great is that they are doing that kind of thing on a regular basis.

Not to get nit picky but Khorne probably has the worst possible summoning that’s basically a “win more” button. In order to get anything out of it something has to die. If your opponent has especially tanky units that are hard to kill it can take forever to earn Blood Tithe. 

I’ve had games where I earned like 3 Blood Tithe in all of 4 turns and you really can’t do much with Blood Tithe. Not to mention just because you get something for your units dying doesn’t mean you necessarily want your units dying because the rate and pace at which you gain Blood Tithe can never keep up with the amount dying. 

Then you either have to spend summoning on the basically “special effects” table (which have some VERY powerful effects) OR choose to summon, and you can’t do both and Blood Tithe doesn’t carry over. So if you spend 6 but had 7 you simply lose the 1 extra. There’s no pooling or banking and you can spend say, 3 here and 4 there to equal 7. It’s all at once, pick 1 thing and that’s it. I spent blood Tithe is wasted, you can’t combine effects and you can only EITHER summon or use a special effect but never both. 

Khorne’s summoning is a joke. 

[whispersofblood]

5 hours ago, Dracan said:

I do not get the point of your argument on how this pertains to tiers in AoS in a competitive tournament scene... other than a lecture on statistics which tbh i agree with on the integrity of the data... but what is your point though?

We are discussing the fictional tier system of little toy soldier fantasy armies with almost infinite combinations of variables when you include the human factor.  Do you agree sortof with the order in which these armies fall?  if not other than saying stats are made up and points dont matter how do you rank the armies?

You must also remember that data isnt based on some backwater basement games, most if not all the tournaments they count are pretty darn big affairs with serious gamers trying to do their best, thus we can also assume they are mostly using the top ends of the book. and yes assume and stats and integrity dont go well together but again it is the only numbers we have.

Honestly I wouldn't tier factions like this because tier doesn't mean enough by which to reach any usable conclusion.

I'd use standard deviations, I would say almost all the books are pretty well grouped together. I wouldn't put anything in my graph without a battletome, and my conclusion would be.

Most of the books are close together, DoK are near the top of the standard, Khorne and nighthaunt are one deviation below the standard and FEC is probably near the center of the deviation above.

But then I would consider everything inside the standard to be acceptable for the size and complexity of Age of Sigmar. And ranking them inside the standard is a mostly meaningless task. Some factions increase is power as other factions of playstyles increase in number, so you get local realignments based on taste. For example Grandhost of Nagash is strong but it has bad faction match ups and that can give a short term change to the precieved strength of a faction or build when the faction itself is otherwise understrength.

This before we even discuss the fact that tournaments aren't a measure of faction but are a measure of build. So are DoK strong or is Hagg Narr with xyz strong?

Data is data but interpretation of data is constrained to how it is measured. This data can't and shouldn't be used to create what people are looking for. You can tell because the categories being thrown around are far too open, inconsistent and wishy washy. You can get data to say anything you want if you move the goal posts around, and I haven't seen any rigorous discussion on what the goal post should be and why.

Even with quality data, taken constantly this sort of data would at best tell you, "How strong a factions tournament build within maybe 200 pt variation to specific units, at one tournament was that year assuming a similar subset of tournament builds."

 

[Televiper11]

To clarify a misconception about Chaos Dwarfs / Legion of Azgorh -- they do not have free summon or any kind of summon.

If they are strong in the meta, I'd suggest it is for two reasons: 1) strong MW output with artillery & 2) unfamiliarity with the army due to Forge World status.

[Xasz]

3 hours ago, Ravinsild said:

Khorne’s summoning is a joke. 

You left out the best part.

For some messed up reason Khorne now has a slight but impactful deviation from all other gods concerning summoning. While they are able to summon multiple units with one activation, Khorne is limited to one.

We expected this to be the new standard for all upcoming god-specific armies, due to all having the same base rules for summoning (only resource used and quantity is different). Jokes on us, Slaanesh remained pretty much the same in terms of summoning an can still summon multiple units (like the others).

(Some suspect that outdated/draft pages got printed for Khorne and GW is just rolling with it...)

[PlasticCraic]

7 hours ago, Forrix said:

I'd encourage people to actually watch the Honest Wargammer's stat show on YouTube/Twitch. He and LLV go over the limitations of their data and what can and can not be taken from it. LLV in particular seems very knowledgeable about statistics. Short version- don't taken them as "omg nerf everything about faction x" but you also shouldn't just discard them.  

Correct - @LLV is collaborating with a mathematics professor on his statistics, he is well aware of what they do and don't tell us, and any limitations they may have.

This isn't just some joker throwing numbers about to be dismissed out of hand.  He knows what he's doing.

[PlasticCraic]

14 hours ago, XReN said:

I suspect a nail on the coffin of their original allegiance, to be completely honest.

For someone who doesn't know much about the Legion of Grief: what do we think is happening here?

[Skabnoze]

7 hours ago, Forrix said:

I'd encourage people to actually watch the Honest Wargammer's stat show on YouTube/Twitch. He and LLV go over the limitations of their data and what can and can not be taken from it. LLV in particular seems very knowledgeable about statistics. Short version- don't taken them as "omg nerf everything about faction x" but you also shouldn't just discard them.  

[Skreech Verminking]

6 hours ago, PlasticCraic said:

For someone who doesn't know much about the Legion of Grief: what do we think is happening here?

A new way to have fun and combine your  Nighthaunt units who were unable to join the legion of death in particularly before, for the campaign.

(my guts is telling me that it probably won’t be usable in matched play (but I might be wrong))

[Chikout]

I think the numbers are useful but they are exaggerated by the player effect. There are very few top tournament players in the world who knowingly take weaker lists. A big part of tournament play is list building, so you will usually see the best players playing the best factions. 

Gloomspite gits is a good example of this. There has been a lot of talk about how this is an underpowered book, but I think a lot of players who are attracted to the gits are the type of players who are more interested in a fun list than a competitive list. This must have a big impact on the stats. 

 

[svnvaldez]

7 hours ago, PlasticCraic said:

 For someone who doesn't know much about the Legion of Grief: what do we think is happening here?

 

41 minutes ago, Skreech Verminking said:

A new way to have fun and combine your  Nighthaunt units who were unable to join the legion of death in particularly before, for the campaign.

(my guts is telling me that it probably won’t be usable in matched play (but I might be wrong))

Just guessing but I see it as a better attempt at Firestorm like armies. Biggest issue with Firestorm imo is that the rules you need for matched play are only sold in a campaign box which many match play players will never buy. Seems Legion of Grief is sold with a box like MS which has endless spells, artifacts, realm spells, etc (I suspect all players will buy this).

Even thou they are basically the same product I see Firestorm more as a side AOS thing that many people were never exposed to and thus exclude from there "standard acceptable aos"... where MS and Forbidden power are real expansions to the game that are widely played.

[svnvaldez]

1 hour ago, Chikout said:

I think the numbers are useful but they are exaggerated by the player effect. There are very few top tournament players in the world who knowingly take weaker lists. A big part of tournament play is list building, so you will usually see the best players playing the best factions. 

Gloomspite gits is a good example of this. There has been a lot of talk about how this is an underpowered book, but I think a lot of players who are attracted to the gits are the type of players who are more interested in a fun list than a competitive list. This must have a big impact on the stats. 

 

Definitely true.

This is why people should try to analyze the stats rather than take them as hard truths (and if ppl don't want to analyze them just listen to Honest Wargammer's stat show and trust they are more informed). If ppl think there is a player effect then take a look at the number of occurrences an army places in the top 3 rather than raw win ratio. Make sure to balance the number of occurrences in the top 3 with the % of meta statistic... etc etc.

Also there is such a wide variety in army builds within faction. 1 of everything Gloomspite will not play like 180 grot Gloomspite. So ppl should also dig up a little more information before they just claim x army is good/bad.

Justsaying podcast also does a segment on the state of the meta and breaks builds into tiers. But even that is limited since they only do it say every 6 months. If someone has the time they should do something like this https://mtgadecks.net/ . Tier the armies then provide a "net list" version of the army. So where it says Mono R you would write girslegore and write in the 4 beast + 2 arch build.

Magic has it easier since meta constantly and only changes with each release every 3 months. For AOS you have to updated it every tome or gh release and add in lag time to actually figure out what is in what tier. In MTG that lag is about 2-3 weeks. 

 

 

Edited May 17, 2019 by svnvaldez

[Scurvydog]

2 hours ago, svnvaldez said:

 

Just guessing but I see it as a better attempt at Firestorm like armies. Biggest issue with Firestorm imo is that the rules you need for matched play are only sold in a campaign box which many match play players will never buy. Seems Legion of Grief is sold with a box like MS which has endless spells, artifacts, realm spells, etc (I suspect all players will buy this).

Even thou they are basically the same product I see Firestorm more as a side AOS thing that many people were never exposed to and thus exclude from there "standard acceptable aos"... where MS and Forbidden power are real expansions to the game that are widely played.

If the new legion of grief is not usable in matched play I at least will be extremely disappointed. 

[sal4m4nd3r]

4 hours ago, Scurvydog said:

If the new legion of grief is not usable in matched play I at least will be extremely disappointed. 

Its likely to be a way of attempting to fix thier mistake of allowing nighthaunt units in LoN. Probably a sub faction similar to the other mortarchs, where you are looked into bringing lady olynder if you want nighthaunt in LoN as a tax. Can also make artefacts and command traits somewhat poo to add a futher tax. 

[Kasper]

I certainly think the whole "top tier armies" should be taken with a grain of salt. At what point is the armies imbalanced? At the very top? Surely the difference is much smaller for the people who aren't in the very top and not constantly participating in big tournaments. I understand the desire for having a fair match, but I know at my local it has been infected by this whole "top tier armies" thing. People kinda frown upon DoK players because they read somewhere that DoK wins a lot and therefore it must be "an easy and OP army". People using Tzaangor units as BoC are dorks etc. Some people seem to obsess a little bit too much without realizing that the imbalance the very top faces, isn't relevant at all for local play.

[XReN]

36 minutes ago, sal4m4nd3r said:

Its likely to be a way of attempting to fix thier mistake of allowing nighthaunt units in LoN. Probably a sub faction similar to the other mortarchs, where you are looked into bringing lady olynder if you want nighthaunt in LoN as a tax. Can also make artefacts and command traits somewhat poo to add a futher tax. 

That would be a rather late and stupid way to do so, they should've scraped the FAQ allowing a bunch of bedsheets to be in LoN army in first few months into 2nd ed.

[SwampHeart]

1 hour ago, Kasper said:

Some people seem to obsess a little bit too much without realizing that the imbalance the very top faces, isn't relevant at all for local play.

This is 100% incorrect, I've lost new players in my group because of it. Specifically I had 2 new guys pick up DoK and KO at the same time, neither were aware of the power difference in the two armies. They played for about 3 months with us (and my group tried to help them out, got the KO player games against the non DoK player, etc) but every time they played the KO player was absolutely dejected. To be clear the DoK player wasn't playing a netlist but was literally just taking good DoK units out of what was available and was still just entirely heads and shoulders above the KO player. After three months of this both sold off their armies and went on to find other games to play. Imbalance has more of an impact on casual and new players than top end tournament players. 

Edited May 17, 2019 by SwampHeart

[XReN]

Makes sence, I remember having countless arguements with my friend when we picked up AoS together and I played SCE and he played Khorne

[Forrix]

6 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

This is 100% incorrect, I've lost new players in my group because of it. Specifically I had 2 new guys pick up DoK and NH at the same time, neither were aware of the power difference in the two armies. They played for about 3 months with us (and my group tried to help them out, got the NH player games against the non DoK player, etc) but every time they played the NH player was absolutely dejected. To be clear the DoK player wasn't playing a netlist but was literally just taking good DoK units out of what was available and was still just entirely heads and shoulders above the NH player. After three months of this both sold off their armies and went on to find other games to play. Imbalance has more of an impact on casual and new players than top end tournament players. 

Kharadron Overlords has claimed multiple new players in my area. I swear its like some sort of death trap if you're trying to build a community. It has super cool models and is perceived to be supported because it has a battletome but then discourages them with atrociously bad rules. Especially when the player is using all the different special weapons and loading up on boats.  Cherry on top is the shooty but super squishy nature of it leads to the double turn mattering more and that's already the #1 core rule that detracts new players (in my experience).

[Mayple]

8 hours ago, Chikout said:

Gloomspite gits is a good example of this. There has been a lot of talk about how this is an underpowered book, but I think a lot of players who are attracted to the gits are the type of players who are more interested in a fun list than a competitive list. This must have a big impact on the stats. 

Not to say that Gits players in general are uncompetitive, but I agree with this.

A lot of the reason I was happy with Gloomspite when it came out was that it was pretty clear how internally balanced it was, and by extension, it wasn't broken in any clear way. This allowed me to retain a sense of pride when I brought it to a competitive event, as I wasn't bringing an army that would win on it's own, but that required good piloting to achieve victory. I'm a "Johnny" player by heart, for those that know that MTG stereotype, so it appealed to me a lot. I went 5/0 on that event, but I had to work really really hard for it, and was completely exhausted by the end of the two-day event. 

As a sidenote, I've been very hesitant on getting back into Skaven, who I played a lot during their time without a battletome, since it is currently overachieving, but I've noted that it seems to be due to the warplightning vortex abuse, which I'm planning to hold off on to avoid that trap.

tl;dr: You're right that certain factions draw certain type of players, and top-tier armies tend to draw top-tier players, which in turn makes their overall win statistic go even higher.

Edited May 17, 2019 by Mayple

[Kasper]

40 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

This is 100% incorrect, I've lost new players in my group because of it. Specifically I had 2 new guys pick up DoK and KO at the same time, neither were aware of the power difference in the two armies. They played for about 3 months with us (and my group tried to help them out, got the KO player games against the non DoK player, etc) but every time they played the KO player was absolutely dejected. To be clear the DoK player wasn't playing a netlist but was literally just taking good DoK units out of what was available and was still just entirely heads and shoulders above the KO player. After three months of this both sold off their armies and went on to find other games to play. Imbalance has more of an impact on casual and new players than top end tournament players. 

But this has nothing to do about the talk about "top tier armies". This just goes to show that deck building is half the battle. At entry level, every face-smash army is miles ahead of armies that require tricks and good positioning. It also heavily depends on if you play with objectives or not.

 

With new players, all that matter is what units have the best damaging profiles. This will 100% decide the games when they don't have any idea of synergies and how their army functions. If you play a non objective game it is even worse, since it is 100% a fight to the death.

Edited May 17, 2019 by Kasper

[SwampHeart]

42 minutes ago, Kasper said:

With new players, all that matter is what units have the best damaging profiles. This will 100% decide the games when they don't have any idea of synergies and how their army functions. If you play a non objective game it is even worse, since it is 100% a fight to the death.

No, this has entirely to do with army imbalance. Both of these players had more experienced players attempting to help them build their armies into a better space and the KO player just didn't have the options to do so by comparison to the DoK player. Army imbalance leads to army tiers and army imbalance is awful for new players. 

These guys were playing missions as is appropriate and had a community working to help them progress. They weren't just two guys with no guidance starting out. Our club lost out on two new players because of the army imbalance that exists in AoS right now - when people talk army tiering they're talking about army imbalance. 

Edited May 17, 2019 by SwampHeart

[Kevin K]

21 hours ago, Ravinsild said:

Not to get nit picky but Khorne probably has the worst possible summoning that’s basically a “win more” button. In order to get anything out of it something has to die. If your opponent has especially tanky units that are hard to kill it can take forever to earn Blood Tithe. 

I’ve had games where I earned like 3 Blood Tithe in all of 4 turns and you really can’t do much with Blood Tithe. Not to mention just because you get something for your units dying doesn’t mean you necessarily want your units dying because the rate and pace at which you gain Blood Tithe can never keep up with the amount dying. 

Then you either have to spend summoning on the basically “special effects” table (which have some VERY powerful effects) OR choose to summon, and you can’t do both and Blood Tithe doesn’t carry over. So if you spend 6 but had 7 you simply lose the 1 extra. There’s no pooling or banking and you can spend say, 3 here and 4 there to equal 7. It’s all at once, pick 1 thing and that’s it. I spent blood Tithe is wasted, you can’t combine effects and you can only EITHER summon or use a special effect but never both. 

Khorne’s summoning is a joke. 

I actually like Khorne's summoning but the points you raise are exactly the costs and things that keep it balanced.  That was basically my point.  Free summoning is never really free and does not automatically make an army better than one that doesn't summon. 

In the case of Khorne, you are either getting only small benefits from it or you design your army around it, which has serious opertunity costs.

In any case the specific summoning rules are simply one part of the overall army power/balance.  Summoning can make balancing more difficult (in both directions) but is interesting enough to be worth it IMO.

[Battlefury]

At this point, some people would say that AoS is much more balancedthan it was ver before.

I would argue, that it is not. It is much too easy to abuse certain army combinations, that will kind of automatically lead you to a victory, no matter whom you face. The other way around it has too much armies, that will juts not win.

This gap is getting bigger and bigger, as new releases are being thrown on the market, without really concidering the balance level between the armies. It feels like, each designer makes his own book ( Battletome ) and doesn't talk to the other rule designers. Just as it is with the Black Library Books. An author just writes, what he thinks is cool, that's really it.

It really drives potential new players away from the hobby right now. I see it at my local community. People left already, because some armies can just not be defeated, as their rules set gives them sooo many tools, when others don't have them at all.

It is a fact, that armies are just abd designed, and others are therefore absolutely mindblowing.
The question is, why do the customers & players accept this flaws?