It's easy to say "LSM have all the tools they need, they just need to git gud" when you're in the 90% who don't play multiple factions and don't see how the class setup for LSM actively discourages using some of their best tools First and foremost is the point of most contention: the Shieldbro. Enemies and clanmates alike will tell me that it's an amazing push tool that gives your team more cover and lets you close the gap. Let's leave aside how durable it really is (I've claimed that it goes down in half a bolter magazine, however it's since been clarified for me this was an older patch and the durability has since been buffed) and focus on "close the gap". I take issue with this assertion. The Shield prepresents a tradeoff: more durability for less mobility. Put simply, this is bad. Making it harder to position yourself i na game where position is KING, letting enemy dictate flow of battle, is not a good trade in a lot of players' eyes. Now is the Shield still worth it? Lots of players say yes (shoutout to @Wiawyr, @ArtemK, @ThatEffingHeretic, also @Algernon and @Valaron; sometimes I need to butt heads with people as hopelessly stubborn as myself) and to my surprise some of them actually did play LSM. But the very fact that I have to ask "still worth it" represents a problem: it's not fun to be Shieldbro. Thesis pt1: From the perspective of a game designer, why would a player want to play shieldbro? JPA has the same melee weapons and moves faster, which is better for offense and, from the perspective of the players, is just more rewarding overall. Plus, if the shieldbro can't carry capture keys anyway, the game doesn't make it feel like shieldbro is losing anything. Combine the lack of rewarding feedback with the lack of capture keys for shieldbro -- even if they use pistol instead -- means fewer classes carrying good melee. Bad for team composition, as you can probably imagine. This prioritizes tacticals, but tacticals are terrible. Have you seen the number crunch? Dire Avenger's Catapult has a DPS of 250 at min range and 159 at max range. The Shoota Boy's stock Shoota has a DPS of 224 at min range and 148 at max range. The mighty Bolter with its armor piercing explosive rounds does a mere 210 DPS at min range and 158 at max range. And before you object, no, these guns all have the same spread and recoil. Chaos, of course, uses the same garbage bolters. But Chaos as a quick, effective melee capping class and doesn't need to use them. CSM teams what want to take a point can load up on GAs and go all Khorne Berserker. Another big point of contention is the Apothecary, and their legendary ability to pick up downed players off the ground instantly. This, you have a bit more of a point with; that is their main draw. However it's far from instant in practice, what with shoddy hit detection; the medic is exposed for several seconds as he tries to get hte healing mechanic to be have. Now combine that with medics having a godawful preset, stuck with a chainsword that loses to Sorc and Warlock's power swords and breaks in three clangs. This encourages more bolter use when a player goes to make their custom loadouts. You know, the crap weapon, and unlike the Painboy they can't even take poison bullets for a little bit of fun Game design is about teaching your player how to play the game properly. You can whine all you want about LSM having everything they need and JUST GIT GUD, but there's one thing they are totally missing: they're the one faction where the game doesn't encourage proper team composition and then gimps their ranged classes. Summation: LSM have a harder time gitting gud because the game gives them less conveyance. CSM, Eldar, and Orks all have built-in encouragement to play the right classes. LSM don't
I'll tell you one LSM class that is doing just fine: JPA's God damn sometimes it feels like back in like...patch 10 or 12 or whatever when JPA's were murdering everyone. The times I lose to LSM as Orks, we are overwhelmed with JPA's raining from the skies with a couple shieldbros cleaning up and leading the way for some tacticals/apoths in the rear. Not saying LSM don't need things, they need an identity at the very least.
Ehhh...don't LSM have more identity with subfactions currently than CSM? They have SW's with special Apoths, CSM doesn't have anything yet do they? They have all their marks and whatnot which is unique to the faction and gives them an identity. Currently LSM doesn't really have one. Even Orks have Gobs which are basically Iron Halos.
Please 1 broken(both ways )class doesnt give identity!And LSM have identity its that most LSM players dont like it.
Played for 6 hours today as LSM, won ZERO games. LSM is getting the gimp stick because for some reason people playing LSM doesn't want to use melee weapons. So every match, they get butt tickled by masses of melee spams. When every game, for 6 hours, majority of the enemy goes exclusive melee classes, you know there's a balancing issue. But, since people mentioned in other threads, that link melee to stamina doesn't work and balancing damage will make ranged too OP. Then, theres really no other way to fix the issue which makes this game broken by design and cannot be fixed.
Teach me how to cap with melee and I promise you, you'll see the same 80/20 split that CSM runs melee to ranged.
This is true, there's too much jump infantry all round for my liking, too many stormboys, raptors and swooping hawks! The old patch you are referring to included lifesteal for JPAs but it was taken out because it made them OP with their manoeuvrability. Not sure why it's now back!
