AOS tier list!

[tripchimeras]

2 hours ago, Dead Scribe said:

I would say that there is no way it drops from 65 to 55% based on that change alone.  If it did it wouldn't really be competitive anymore and would be trash bin change.

This is incredibly hyperbolic.  Aside from Slaanesh the only army with a 60% win percentage and any meaningful meta presence at the moment is DoK, and 3% BARELY qualifies them for "meaningful" status.  Slaanesh is the only meta significant army at the moment above 60%.  A win rate of 55% would place them exactly in line with FEC and Skaven.  Even the most competitive of players would list that as being in a very competitive place.

[whispersofblood]

17 minutes ago, tripchimeras said:

This is incredibly hyperbolic.  Aside from Slaanesh the only army with a 60% win percentage and any meaningful meta presence at the moment is DoK, and 3% BARELY qualifies them for "meaningful" status.  Slaanesh is the only meta significant army at the moment above 60%.  A win rate of 55% would place them exactly in line with FEC and Skaven.  Even the most competitive of players would list that as being in a very competitive place.

Historically.

Orruks, Hallowheart, and OB are all better armies than HoS, FEC and Skaven were. 

I don't know why GW won't admit to themselves that it is much easier to break an army by trying to decrease it's abilities than it is to break an army trying to errata them to be better.

Edited December 17, 2019 by whispersofblood

[tripchimeras]

9 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

Historically

Orruks, Hallowheart, and OB are all better armies than HoS, FEC and Skaven were. 

I don't know why GW won't admit to themselves that it is much easier to break an army by trying to decrease it's abilities than it is to break an army trying to errata them to be better.

EDIT replied before you expanded your post..... 

I mean that really remains to be seen and is purely speculative and anecdotal.  We do not have statistics bareing that out at the moment, beyond a very miniscule number of events.  You very well may be correct that right now those 3 are better then HOS, FEC and Skaven are, but my point is that 55% win rate is good enough for  a top 4 army at the moment.  So saying that a 55% win rate is competitive ****** is just plain wrong.  We have no idea what the competitive win rates are going to be 3 months from now, when we have adequate data on all of this.  But 55% would certainly be high enough to qualify as top tier, unless the game takes an unprecedented competitive balance dive.

 

As to why GW consistently tries to use the carrot and not the stick?  Its all about PR.  People aren't going to complain about GW making bad stuff better.  People are always going to complain about GW taking their toys away.  Granted if GW doesn't take toys away people are going to also complain, but I am sure GW has decided that a carrot focused approach makes general hobbyists far happier then the stick.  The stick is going to make the competitive community happy, but we are a really small part.  The carrot shows them trying, without it actually effecting the casual player a great deal.  That's what I think.

Edited December 17, 2019 by tripchimeras

[whispersofblood]

7 minutes ago, tripchimeras said:

EDIT replied before you expanded your post..... 

I mean that really remains to be seen and is purely speculative and anecdotal.  We do not have statistics bareing that out at the moment, beyond a very miniscule number of events.  You very well may be correct, but that right now those 3 are better then HOS, FEC and Skaven are, but my point is that 55% win rate is good enough for  a top 4 or 5 army at the moment.  So saying that a 55% win rate is competitive ****** is just plain wrong.  We have no idea what the competitive win rates are going to be 3 months from now, when we have adequate data on all of this.  But 55% would certainly be high enough to qualify as top tier, unless the game takes an unprecedented competitive balance dive.

We have meta% we can math out meta representative shifts in meta win percentage for the desired win percentage of targeted faction.

[tripchimeras]

7 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

We have meta% we can math out meta representative shifts in meta win percentage for the desired win percentage of targeted faction.

Could you elaborate on this a bit?  

[whispersofblood]

1 minute ago, tripchimeras said:

Could you elaborate on this a bit?  

Yeah. So based on the information we have from THW we can calculate exactly what the win % of each army could be if you adjust the win percentage of any one faction, at any given stage of a 5 round tournament. 

We know how many games they win, we know how many times out of 100 they appear in an event, and we know the relevent win percentage and how the number of wins each faction has an event. So you could run a representative 100 player tournament and figure out what theoretical new win percentages would be if you fixed HoS at 55%.

Obviously rule interactions are more complicated than that, so there is margin for error but it would give you a good indicator of what could happen. 

Likely HoS were keeping other abusive lists under represented in the tournament wins department, and probably 5 wins categories. So there might see some surprise lists surge in results in the future. Namely FS imo, who just got a buff.

[Overread]

Which is always a risk when you pool data only from tournaments. Whilst some people do meta-chase if the chase results in a win they are less likely to jump ship to a "good but just not the flavour of the month" army that might otherwise have a similar statistical chance to win. So you can end up with some "power" lists just not being as represented because it wasn't an overpowered flavour of the month for a while. 

 

Of course tournaments do tend to present more accurate data in terms of the data reported and also in terms of player skill being generally at least capable to higher tier, esp in the latter seats at the event. Plus you can know the house rules for an event and filter more outlandish house ruled events out.

Pooling data from home and club games is much trickier because you've less chance to double check results; they might not declare all house rules played with; they might not have the highest skill. etc.... So the data can get much more muddy. 

[whispersofblood]

Pretty much, why I think THW data is grossly misused, and under utilitized.

Once you have an existing, accepted data set there isn't a reason to not use it for models. But there is some anecdotal work that needs to be done.

[Turragor]

9 hours ago, Zanzou said:

Why wouldn't it? Even if you stack leaders as normal, doesn't that significantly hamper your early objective control?  DP on the things that mattered looked like it went up a lot.  Also locus from 3+ to 5+ is game-changing

Locus is 5+ instead 4+ and greater daemons still get 2 added (so 3+).

Or am I missing something 

[Zanzou]

11 minutes ago, Turragor said:

Locus is 5+ instead 4+ and greater daemons still get 2 added (so 3+).

Or am I missing something 

Oh my bad there. I am an opponent of Slaanesh not a Slaanesh player...

[Turragor]

15 minutes ago, Zanzou said:

Oh my bad there. I am an opponent of Slaanesh not a Slaanesh player...

Same! I think I understand their rules more now after this round of faqs

[Zappgrot]

20 hours ago, Dolomyte said:

Well they just got a big nerf. So we will see how they play out over the next few weeks

They did? What happend?   I would think that the release of Slaves to Darkness only gave them more options.

 

[Dreadmund]

2 minutes ago, Zappgrot said:

They did? What happend?   I would think that the release of Slaves to Darkness only gave them more options.

 

Locus now Triggers on a 5+ (or 3+ for keepers) and all their summoning went up in Depravity cost.

[Dead Scribe]

15 hours ago, tripchimeras said:

This is incredibly hyperbolic.  Aside from Slaanesh the only army with a 60% win percentage and any meaningful meta presence at the moment is DoK, and 3% BARELY qualifies them for "meaningful" status.  Slaanesh is the only meta significant army at the moment above 60%.  A win rate of 55% would place them exactly in line with FEC and Skaven.  Even the most competitive of players would list that as being in a very competitive place.

To be honest, as far as tournaments are concerned, I like that they have one or two armies that are heads and shoulders above everything else because it makes figuring out what to collect easy and also makes the meta easy to navigate since you know what you are going to be seeing a lot of so can prepare properly.  So to me slaanesh coming down to 55% would not be competitive in that regard.

I still also don't see how this change drops them that much down either, but if they do I will sell off for bonereapers.

[Zappgrot]

4 hours ago, Dreadmund said:

Locus now Triggers on a 5+ (or 3+ for keepers) and all their summoning went up in Depravity cost.

Oh that makes sense.

[Dolomyte]

6 minutes ago, Zappgrot said:

Oh that makes sense.

The new rule for incompatible effects is probably a bigger nerf to them then people realize. Locus triggers during charge phase, so will get overwritten by any fight phase strikes first abilities now as well

[Overread]

1 hour ago, Dead Scribe said:

To be honest, as far as tournaments are concerned, I like that they have one or two armies that are heads and shoulders above everything else because it makes figuring out what to collect easy and also makes the meta easy to navigate since you know what you are going to be seeing a lot of so can prepare properly.  So to me slaanesh coming down to 55% would not be competitive in that regard.

The problem is that in the eyes of many what you're basically aiming to do is "cheat" within the rules of the game. 

That is looking for something within the rules of the game that is legally more powerful than the standard power curve for the game. In theory this is the same thing that GW should look for and then remove from the game so that the mechanical power difference between armies becomes smoother and more even. Aiming for all armies to have the same percentage win potential.

 

At which point the game is no longer about what you bought specifically, but becomes a case of what you've chosen to use and how you use it on the tabletop. Ergo it moves the point of the win from the army to the player. 

 

 

 

Also in theory if the game becomes what you want - ergo where the "I win" is very specific army build or one of two or three; then you end up with only people choosing, using and winning with those options. So it actually results in the same percentage win chance at the top tables. Ergo you end up right in the same position, just instead of 24 different factions and multiple different armies you've got 2. For many this isn't an ideal situation for a wargame because the vast majority of players have an attachment to their army. They arn't wheeling and dealing with armies and paying for comission work - they are buying, building and painting up their own army that they might collect for decades.

It's no fun to learn that your loyally built army is unable or exceptionally unlikely to win not because you're not a good enough player (a skill that can improve and be worked on) but because for a whole edition (which might be 5 years or more) GW has mucked up the numbers and your army is at/near the bottom. Just ask Slaves to Darkness players if they've enjoyed competitive tournaments before the new Battletome - many couldn't even enjoy local games because their army was so horribly broken compared to 2.0 forces. 

[Dead Scribe]

I would say that from what I have read, this is how gw games have been for over a decade so I'm not seeing the realistic outcome of your argument.  They have always included one or two armies that are head and shoulders more powerful, and in the competitive scenes those will naturally draw the competitive people interested in winning tournaments to them.

I don't see how its cheating.  Cheating is breaking rules.  Playing the rules that GW designs and taking advantage of what they seem to intentionally build out is not cheating.

I see it as marketing to get people to continue to buy new armies indefinitely.

[Zappgrot]

57 minutes ago, Dolomyte said:

The new rule for incompatible effects is probably a bigger nerf to them then people realize. Locus triggers during charge phase, so will get overwritten by any fight phase strikes first abilities now as well

Oh that sounds pretty  impactfull.  But doesn't that get counterd by the rules that state that if you must strike first and strike last you strike at the normal time?

[Forrix]

42 minutes ago, Overread said:

It's no fun to learn that your loyally built army is unable or exceptionally unlikely to win not because you're not a good enough player (a skill that can improve and be worked on) but because for a whole edition (which might be 5 years or more) GW has mucked up the numbers and your army is at/near the bottom. Just ask Slaves to Darkness players if they've enjoyed competitive tournaments before the new Battletome - many couldn't even enjoy local games because their army was so horribly broken compared to 2.0 forces. 

I've also seen this turn new players away from the game.  KO and Nighthaunt have were first armies for about half a dozen new players in my area last year. Every single one of them has either quit the game or switched to a different army. 

[whispersofblood]

2 minutes ago, Forrix said:

I've also seen this turn new players away from the game.  KO and Nighthaunt have were first armies for about half a dozen new players in my area last year. Every single one of them has either quit the game or switched to a different army. 

Isn't that just had intro policy though? Model gaming is like any activity there should be a strong focus on learning the activity, not results.

[Dead Scribe]

I think its up to the players to do research before investing, and I think its also up to the community around them to warn them about the trap armies instead of letting them spend a lot of money on an army that is horrible.  As much as people like to tout hobby and all, most people I have been exposed to really do want to not get crushed simply because of army choice (i'm not referring to tournament level I'm referring to the base store for fun level).

[Overread]

1 minute ago, Dead Scribe said:

I think its up to the players to do research before investing, and I think its also up to the community around them to warn them about the trap armies instead of letting them spend a lot of money on an army that is horrible.  As much as people like to tout hobby and all, most people I have been exposed to really do want to not get crushed simply because of army choice (i'm not referring to tournament level I'm referring to the base store for fun level).

And that's why people want GW to balance the game so that most armies are closer to the same win percentage instead of some being above and some below to extreme levels.

 

In general whilst GW has always had this issue its often very little to do with being a crafty marketing plan (stormcast are currently poster childs of the game and are under the power curve in general); and more to do with the culture and method by which GW makes its rules. Heck in the past you could miss a whole rules edition before you got an updated Battletome. Or you'd get one on the very last weeks of the edition before it all changed. 

GW is being a LOT faster this time around and they are adjusting balance as they go as well; they've still got some of the same errors and problems due to their own internal approach and culture, but they are making changes. I would wager we'll see Slaanesh keep getting chipped away at until its closer to that 50% win rate (or rather chipped away at until its more in-line with the rest of the armies in the game). 

 

 

As you say no one likes to play the underdog army that always loses; so just as Slaanesh should get cut down, others like Nighthaunt, should get boosted up. 

[Zappgrot]

24 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

I would say that from what I have read, this is how gw games have been for over a decade so I'm not seeing the realistic outcome of your argument.  They have always included one or two armies that are head and shoulders more powerful, and in the competitive scenes those will naturally draw the competitive people interested in winning tournaments to them.

I don't see how its cheating.  Cheating is breaking rules.  Playing the rules that GW designs and taking advantage of what they seem to intentionally build out is not cheating.

I see it as marketing to get people to continue to buy new armies indefinitely.

I'ts not cheating. And he did not claim it is cheating. He said that it feels or is percived as "cheating". Not because rules are broken but because it's a way to try and  overcome a lack of skill.  Now that is not entirerly true  because. Beeing in the meta and haveing the right stuff is also a sort of skill.  So it's not like the problem whit  overpowered armies is  skill based. Truly it's not even a game problem (from an competative standpoint). it's an economic problem. Because it puts capital at an advantage compared to skill.  And I can understand that that irritates ppl.   That aside from a hobby perspective it's also a bit of a problem. When your army is so bad  you struggle to win.  Because that makes you feel bad about something you spend a lot of time on creating.

 

And the last thing i noticed is that  the unbalance in amries is even worse for the verry casual amoung the player base.  Really compatative and skilled players make way less mistakes in thier gameplay and  can  get around  the diffrances in stats between units by useing the units correctly and supportive of each army element. But if you are just smacking stuff together casualy whit not much of a game plan. The units that are statsticly better one on one will Always come out on top.   

Some of the ppl at our club play against each other over and over. And  we had a orruk player that always lost to his friends khorne army. Now that the new book is out he is starting to win. Not because they learned something,  No just because in a straith up smackdown the orruks just got a little better whit the book

[Forrix]

On the subject of Tier lists I have two "bold" predictions for this season (aka until GHB 2020).

1.) OBR will be the new bogeyman #1 army.

2.) Fyreslayers will improve in the tier rankings and, for an actually bold prediction, hit a 60% win rate.

Though new battletomes could throw a wrench into this, KO, Tzeentch, and Seraphon are all traditionally associated with Non-combat phase damage and/or teleportation stuff that could really mess up either of these two armies.