After the first few matches with orks, results have been around 50/50. While I think orks are not perfectly balanced yet, I also think players have to get used to them and their meta game. I remember when Eldar came out and became better enemies within a week without balancing. Not like balanced equals, but mastering the meta game will do a bit on it's own.
I've had many losses playing as orks, but it wasn't due to my lack of combat prowess. Mostly the gametypes. As an Ork Slugga, I am well aware of how vulnerable I am, so (unlike an ork) I get a feel for my battlefield before I make my move. I usually play pretty well - and in Melee especially I am a monster. Grazzax is my Ork character. Keep a look out for him, cuz he's lookin' fer you.
I remember the time when I went around a corner and fired off 40 heavy bolter rounds on a incoming advesary 10m away and I missed 90% of them resulting in a very dead me. Orks win battles. Many so that Ive played in. But also Chaos, SM and Eldars win matches. Its not unbalanced to hell.
I have only won once with orks and that was on Pegasus. That small map reduces the effectiveness of the bolt gun greatly.
I'll wait until they get the official stats out because I can't say I played and lost 100 matches. Than again, I stopped playing (orks) because I felt I was so dominated yet with some things still very powerful on our arsenal that I simply reported it all and than stopped until a second pass is made on orks. What striked me however is that I've been put in much more offensive than defensive situations as orks, and offensives are really hard with the new timer. The biggest offender for me was maggon, where I was spawn camped by vehicles and infantry and jump troops. Relatively speaking. Our trucks were blown right from the start before they even got to A, I went as a loota with some cover from other boyz to a ramp were jump troops cutted us to bits (no plasma loota could save us, I was zzap gun to get rid of the autocannon tanks and eldar vehicles both times I assaulted that map). The ramps wouldnt allow me to aim "down" so if I wanted to zzap vehicles I hat to do it in the open field right from spawn were I was focused fired... All in all, it was just impossible to beat a well prepared defense because nothing was tough enough to even make it out of spawn and take down a tank. We were just so outgunned. Of course, sluggas are beast in melee, but there was just no situation where you could actually get into melee for that map on offense. In defense, you KNOW the enemy will come at you, and with plasma lootahs on A building (from which you can fire down, not like the assault ramp when on offense), you can wreak havok, and inside near the cap point, so many corners for sluggahs to just wait for that lone capper. and even if a squad comes, if they come from the same side, you jump in with a lock on charged attack, than couple of fast attack with an axe chopper, dodge those d-bash, win. Overall what I mean is I'm not sure how much it's ork that is unbalanced vs attacking because of certain map configurations. Maggon is just plain the worst map to attack. Funny enough, the only maps I got to play were olipsis, pegasus, maggon and medusa. Didn't get a single fortress harkus, zedek or blackbolt match. Sometimes I was stuck with playing the same map twice, twice in a row on offense. But I think the overall ork inefficiency is a combination of very small factors which still make them able to hold their own in a fight while still being bad at the overall game. Reasons for orks losses 1-Shitton of friendly fire in thight space when capping/melee fighting(on pegasus on offense I could win a 1 vs 4 melee only to be gunned down by a loota that came late before I got to capture point -_-') I recall a loss on pegasus where orks were so godamn bad that even while I managed to capture and defend points a couple of time, and got the most kill, xp, and was the sole member to have ever achieved a capture, I kept dying to ork fire. not enemy fire, not enemy melee, my very own friendly fire. I was so pissed I never forgave anyone. but apparently the system still forgives everyone when you get gunned down. 2- Maps on offense are really hard to win, thats for everyone, maggon is really badly designed from spawn to A in terms of if you have to dislogdge vehicles camping, we are also outgunned to a point where we can't always make it to melee. 3- shootas are downright bad, so are rokkits, they can work if you can aim, but the randomization of the rokket makes it so unreliable I can't see it been used for anything else than close quarter vehicles downing (and not that good at that). 4- Missing powerklaw, though I don't think it'll help because most issues seem to be ranged ones, not melee ones. 5- Easy to kill: with the head hitbox, combined with the fact they'll likely have low armor, are a big target. Orks are bad at aiming, squishy, imagine vs an eldar, with close range fire power, that you can't get shots on because he is so small, and your weapon completly innacurate. That makes for a double disadvantage, the enemy is accurate and has a big target. You are inacurate and have a small target. I guess you can destroy him in melee, but you have to get there first, and you can't, because you,re downed before. So ork melee is REALLY good, IF you get there. that means weapons in themselves aren't that much of an issue, but fighting somewhat is. A final question, why shoota don't just melee with their shoota and have no pistol? It would be interesting that they don,t have to change "stances" and can just bash and switch quickly from shooting to bashing with their shoota. Of course, it would still be knuckle level power, but would still make them be a bit more efficient at melee than other ranged classes (to follow Brent's idea that slugga are a bit shootier than other melee and shoota a bit better in melee than other ranges. Ork classes being slightly less specialists and generally speaking all capable of holding their own in melee. Just to be clear, I don,t think we should be better at range and shooting, but we get so dominated by shooting and not being able to shoot back reliably that we can't get into melee when it would count. So ork survivability might be an alternative answer to making us just equal in shooting which wouldn't make sense. Like some said, removing headshot damage multiplier for orks could be an option. Or Making it a different value, or narrowing down the hitbox, or simply give orks more health. Not sure what option devs and players would prefer.
The accuracy of rokkits isn't the issue. Rokkits are just plain unreliable because they don't stun/damage consistently. I've noticed it a few times. I actually aim for the legs/ground when I use rokkits rather than the chest. I just want the stagger so I can switch to the kwik slugga and gun the enemy down that way (much in the same way I used the plasmagun a long time ago), but there is only a slim chance that the rokkit will do any damage or apply the stun. It's amazing when it does--arguably the strongest 1v1 weapon in the game at mid-range. Actually, forget infantry for a moment. The rokkit launcha performs abysmally against vehicles. Right now, I don't even think 15 rokkits can get a vehicle to around 70%-75% life. I don't know if it's the same problem as above or if the damage is just too low.
Yeah if the Rokkit Launcher is indeed intended to be an atleast somewhat effective AV weapon, they need to improve the damage A LOT it does nothing right now against tanks.
And this is what an ork can see when bracing in a world full of sniping heavy bolters Also, after playing as an ork for some games, what I miss more on them is something like a melta gun to destroy tanks fast. I know they have their lascannon variant, but...it's very inneficient.
