Understandable. I can see where complaints are coming from though, seeing as how it does the same damage as a melee weapon and it causes suppression, but I've only fought Chaos once tonight and I think maybe one of them had an AC. He did kill me pretty quick, but I was out in the open at the time. The biggest issue I was running into was being trampled by roving bands of MoNs now that the Mark is a wargear option for every class and it seems like everyone is using it, but that's nothing particularly new for fighting Chaos.
Eh, it is a new thing though. The actual Mark itself got nerfed heavily. Went from 300 toughness to adding 50 to the class, and went from adding 60 health to adding 30, all while costing 233% of the previous LP. Where a MoN used to be able to equip nades and an item, now you can maybe pick one or the other with the lowest-tier weapons. Everyone is using it because it's new, but the actual benefit from it is somewhat lackluster for the huge cost. It also doesn't seem to give ranged units life-steal on ranged attack, which would possibly justify the 700 LP cost; saying that you get lifesteal from clubbing someone with a havoc weapon is silly and I haven't actually seen that happen despite trying several times.
I've heard that life-steal in general was supposed to be removed due to complaints about an "insta-heal" or something, but since I rarely play Chaos I have no idea if any of that's true or not. I agree that everyone's using it because it's new, but that extra little bit of health is actually probably more useful than the loss of 300 toughness, since plasma doesn't negate bonus health like it does toughness. Plus you get your shield back, so that's probably nice.
Armor on ground assault is nice, but MoN isn't worth the cost currently. It's fine if you want to have a barebones loadout but why would you want to?
Err, shield? You mean the armor bar? If they take life-steal away, then melee becomes nonviable and MoN becomes the most gimped melee class. Apoths can melee and heal themselves 20 times, SBs can melee and damagesoak on a regenerating resource not tied to anything else and use nades and health kits, sorcs (lol) can melee and heal themselves eventually, a MoN assault can melee and maybe use nades OR a health kit. So I kinda question if MoN is supposed to lose its lifesteal on top of the large nerf to its stat bonuses.
Shield, armor, right now it's basically the same thing until we get Iron Halos and Rosariuses. The complaint I saw with the life-steal was that it healed an MoN to the point where one or two hits would completely undo any damage you did to him. All other forms of healing tend to be done out of combat, after an engagement has been finished.
Life-steal was removed not only for being completely unnecessary but also having little reason to exist in an WH40K scenario, except in special circumstances such as possibly with a Mark of Nurgle or some sort of Sorcery power. Toughness should be what determines Max HP, in addition to determining how much DMG HP takes, based on comparing weapon Strength with target Toughness.
I'm waiting on a heal on hit trinkit for my assault, playing without MoN with 500 points to spare and nothing to spend on.
If no melee can self-heal, then I'd be conditionally able to accept the removal of lifesteal. But without it, MoN assault is the weakest melee of all the melee types. MoN was nerfed too hard to expect CSM's assault to be able to tank without lifesteal as a life-preserver.
Once/if the game's stats are properly adjusted things like heal-on-hit will be unnecessary except for in special circumstances. Also, my head was a bit off when I'd posted that as I meant to say Mark of Khorne, not Mark of Nurgle. The Mark of Khorne could allow players with it to heal each other for a small amount with their melee attacks. The game's current performance is a direct result of its improper stat balancing, which is incredibly off.
