This will probably be a very unpopular opinion but beastmen are complete garbage, at this point I’m just tired of even seeing them ingame the only exception being the minotaur.
Beastmen cata hordes are a joke compared to skaven-chaos. Wanting to play tough deeds with vanguard and tougher elites + cata and getting dark omen or athel and you are playing a game on what feels like champion difficulty breezing through maps. Their high tier stuff are trash, they need something similar to a berserker/monk, fast Slaangors or Khorngors with berserker style attacks and/or a good armored enemy (wargors).
Dark omen still is one of the hardest maps on cata. Just due to the layout of boss triggers and the usual horde timers overlapping.
And the mass of beastmen (and the 50 archers in the back) dont make it easier.
A skaven horde being harder than a beastmen horde? How? Only scary part in skaven hordes are monks targetting someone in the backline and running straight through the frontline and hitting the unsuspecting backliner who has his ranged out. For Chaos hordes the only real threat are sliding maulers.
Bestigors at least give a reason for frontline to watch out for charge to not get stunned or their stamina drained.
I haven’t played enough cataclysm so the next paragraph might be completely wrong, please correct me if I am:
On cataclysm, hordes include not just chaff minions, but also the berserker enemies for every faction.
This means skaven hordes get skaven slaves, skaven clanrats and plague monks, while chaos hordes get the fanatics, marauders but also the berserkers.
Beastmen don’t have berserkers, so I assume that a Cataclysm horde is just as strong as a Legend horde (except with increased numbers), which might be why every other faction is stronger than the beastmen in cataclysm. Their hordes are stronger because they have berserkers, while beastmen don’t have berserkers, so they just have chaff.
I noticed it’s just different types of hordes.
There is a horde with Shield Units (A LOT of them)… Annoying because you can’t properly cleave.
One with Beserkers. (Monks or Savages) especially the monk version makes this horde probably the most dangerous one.
One with Elites, on the Skaven it’s “just” Stormvermin with Halberds or Shields.
On the Chaos version the Elites are mostly Maulers, but I also CWs are rarely mixed in. (Might be aggroed from the horde as idle enemies, too. I don’t know.)
The Beastmen have just numbers correct! A lot of those Bannermen can come quickly tho, Once there were 2 at a time and another one shortly after!
On legend the beastmen are still the strongest and easily so i´d say.
As for cata, other fellows mentioned this already but i will repeat it as i also think the core of the issue is just how say Skaven have monks and shield rats mixed in with their hordes while beastmen have nothing like that.
I have personally not played cata against them though so i am basing this of what other said.
On topic: Beastman Hordes without Elites are as easy as other Hordes without Elites. With Elites and Skaven Specials, they’re probably the most difficult Hordes because of size/health pool.
I would love to see Harpies, Bray Shamans, or Ghorgrons (or smaller versions of Ghorgrons), as the main Chaos faction we’re against is Nurgle, and it would make a bit more sense imo.
It would also be cool to have Ghorgrons act as a miniboss style enemy rather than just as a Berserker type, which we already have. A sort of Special/Boss. Instead of 2 Ratling Gunners, you get a mini boss, and possibly 2.
I’d love to see more crossover enemy types between Nurgle and the Skaven/Beastmen. Unless they’re about to start making Khorn/Slaanesh maps.
I would love to see more enemies which can be mixed with their hordes, so to speak elites. I don’t think the game needs more specials, especially not more disablers.
I checked Ghorgons and I think they would work best as boss monsters. But they seem to be even more devastating then Minotaurs so I can’t fathom them being popular. Maybe as some kind of special encounter between boss and Lord on a new map.
For Harpies I have thought in the past but I don’t know how they would fit in the game. I mean, what should they do? Throw rocks from above? Dive and catch a team-mate (so a disabler)? Dive, catch a team-mate and letting him fall again (so temporary disabler plus more than likely downed-state)?
Like I said, some elites would be interesting which can mix with the horde. Chaos Warhounds may be an idea as an alternative to the classical berserker. Faster than other enemies with a slight knockback. Maybe give them an unit which can throw nets. BUT you can melee yourself out of the net AND the enemies can be caught in them too. Because I am tired on bad specials which completely ignore the horde (Assassin, Leech, Packmaster).
What I don’t like would be to give them which already exists. Beastmen have been very well-designed and they all bring something new to the table so just giving them more units for more “diversity” but these units just being copies is a horrible idea. In that regard, I think it would be a stupid idea to make shielded Beastmen or Berserker-style beastmen with two axes charging at you. Let them be what they are: A supplement rooster full of well-designed unique enemies. And from there you may expand the roster. It is not necessary though.
To the OP: Yes, Beastmen have been crippled hard which is a shame. But now with the majority of technical issues around them solved, FS may consider re-adding at least the Ungor dodge behaviour they had at the beginning, giving them back their uniqueness.
Yeah, that’s how I feel too. I just think having the same enemy types for each faction would just become boring. That’s why I’m suggesting something like a mini-boss. Chaos Warhounds could be a good idea. Anything other than copy-pasta factions. That’s why I like the Banner Specials so much, it adds a whole new dynamic to fighting the normal Hordes.
Even though Berserkers suit Beastmen well.
You could just try to make Harpies an Elite/Special mix, where they fight as normal, but in certain circumstances they have a different mechanic. E.g. fighting as normal > someone gets downed > they try to take them. Rather than just being an instant disabler through enemies like the other ones you mentioned. I hate that too tbh.
Ghorgrons are huge, yeah. I’m unsure of the space they have to make their own thing. Seeing Nurgle warped Skaven/Beastmen would be cool though.
Mini-Bosses would be a cool way to take things though imo. It would let them add a Mini-Boss in tighter spots too, instead of Chaos Spawns clipping through walls and killing people. Could function a bit like Patrols, or as a sort of event similar to the CWs at the start of Empire.
I still think Beastmen are the hardest opponents. It’s not uncommon to have two, three or even four banners at the same time, making everything practically unkillable, and then having Bestigors coming out of nowhere, sending you flying. And all the vast amount of archers standing in the distant hailing arrows at you.
I do appreciate that you don’t get the Beastmen as frequently now at least.
Beastmen hordes should never have been a thing. They should be occasional encounters that bring a serious difficulty spike, like patrols or ambushes. Putting them in a horde type encounter requires that the be individually weak or the horde becomes an oppressive and impenetrable wall. Hmm. Sounds familiar.
As long as they are included as a normal horde type encounter they NEED to be weak, or it will be 2.0 all over again.
Beastmen lack the enemy variety to make them more of a threat.
It was a mistake to excuse them to be a “horde based faction”. The possibility of hyper density, layered attacks (with some of these attacks being from ranged via spear awhile ago) and chunky Beastmen (not nearly the case anymore) was ridiculous.
With these problems more or less fixed they should’ve had archers / bestigors spawn with the horde as well no matter the difficulty (though enemy spawns during the horde would need to be adjusted). This way the 5 would need to deal with displacement charging Bestigors while have to possibly reposition to deal with the ranged attacks possibly hitting them.
Imo I’d rather they fully complete the roster by adding 1 more elite, 1-2 more specials and another monster.
Nah, you’re not the only one who believes that beastmen have but cut up till they’re worthless. The initial drawbacks on their damage, removing their reach, and removing their dodge were all great to make way for bug fixes, but I really miss those features. I loved having enemies I couldn’t handily swat out of the air because they’d lunge from so far away, forcing dodges and hyper-aggressive play (or even quick-swap shotgun play mid melee). I love their archers as they are one of the few things that pull me out of my automated Vermintide mode.
People get introduced to something and the shock value of touching the cold water makes them knee-jerk and, unfortunately, a lot of their unique features were lost amongst the bug fixes just after 2.0 dropped. I’m with @Adelion in my hopes that they’re restored to at least part of their former strength.
All of that is my personal opinion, of course… not to be confused with fact by any means. There’s a couple folks around who don’t mind them, just don’t be surprised if some other folks jump on you out for saying it aloud
I think beastmen are still pretty strong. I don’t like how long their reach is as I get hit A LOT if I play the same way I do against them as I do with other factions. They’re a bit harder to kill as they don’t cluster into dense blobs as much as other factions. Which means cleaving won’t be as effective against them. And using push attacks on their hordes is just weird.
Find them to be in pretty decent place nowadays but i guess my biggest issue with beastmen roster is the variety. Apart from that occasional minotaur there really is no suprise factor anymore when it comes to beastmen. At least with chaos/skaven you can be ambushed by different specials which makes fighting these always different.
mode.