In my opinion, chaos is in a very bad shape at the moment. I have played Ranked Battles several times and lost almost all, except 1 game against Chaos. This is probably because I am bad, but certainly also because Chaos (except Macro Brawling Fleets) is in bad shape. The reasons from my point of view:

1. too little damage with lances, especially burst damage. I think the damage should be substantially increased and in return the fire rate reduced. The DPS could stay the same.
2. the detection range for stealthed ships is too low or there are too few possibilities for survey. The cool down for Augur Probe should be reduced to 1/4 (45sec.) Survey is the most important thing for chaos kiting fleet and at the moment there too few options, exept of immediately destroyed escorts.
3. Ordnance is too weak. Would be great if Splitting Carrier Ordnance would be possible.
4. Speed difference is too low. Almost every fraction is able to keep up.

Agree on most of your points.

1. Chaos has access to burst damage. (Ordnance) the problem is its the weakest and most unreliable type of burst damage in the game. Now if they fix or tweak ordnance chaos benifits greatly.

2. Lances just need their Old stats back. That or a slight increase in alpha damage and tweaks for point cost.

3. Chaos speed is pitiful it also doesnt help that IN have them beat in that category as well.

4. Chaos perks are almost all awful. 3 or. 4 of em are boarding focused.... There needs to be more variety to their perks. Or atleast something that benefits their play style in a few ways but unlocks a different take on how you want to play them.

Any fleet comps you guys have been having fun with lately?
I saw a 3 deso, 1 despoiler and 2 idolator fleet on a guy and have been enjoying it as well recently after trying 4 retaliators shenanigans for quite a while.
This BB centric fleet seems to work well against most threats with the corresponding skills and upgrades. Haven't seen it in action against the eldari factions unfortunately but with proper use of scanning tools it could survive a hit and run and give some retribution in return with the long range arsenal available at hand.
Orks could also be a problem with their numbers.

@tr3iz Fun yes, success no. I am trying to play a mixture of an kiting ordnance fleet: 1 styx, 2 archeron, 2 carnage and 3 infidel. Imo kiting with chaos does not work in the current meta for several reasons:

• The alpha strike damage is to low. You cause too little damage in the time the opponent needs to close up, in most cases, you are not even able to bring down the shields. One possible improvement would be to increase the damage and reloadtime in the same relation (dps stays the same). So you could fire and during reload reposition. Or an other option make reload work with lances.

• Detection. There are too little options for survey. You have to rely on escorts, which are destroyed first in MP and then you are blind (you cannot shoot at something you cannot see). So you have to close up, where lances are second. One possible solution imo whould be, if we could have splitted launch bays, giving orders to every launch bay separaty to survey a larger area. Or reduce the cooldown of augur probe dramatically (by 75%).

• Ordnance. Bombers in the current meta are not really reliable and counterd to easily. An improvement of bombers would be desireable, for example, a 50% increase in speed.

@torgen said in Chaos:
Indeed, alpha is somewhat low but the amount of crits tend to make up for it. The task is simple: always focus the nearest enemy and disable it(prio 2+ engines/gen) and as soon as flagship is visible, set it as priority 1.

Desolators can kite a bit with the 200 speed they have but the absence of HET can hurt against torpedoes or keeping up dps. But with high reload time on lances, the effect is diminished a bit. They are tanky enough to be able to boost out of range without taking too much damage unless the enemy ignores the other 3 ships. With Deso admiral you can go as far as having it on front line to deploy the bombs fast and provide a juicy bait, risky nonetheless.

And with the Despoiler set on reload in the back line with its 3(4) launch bays you have a decent chance of scouting the front line if there aren't any clouds in the immediate vicinity and it will punish the first ship that enters it's range to brawl with the Desos. Except the initial scouting, despoiler bombers are only sent after the most isolated/nearest enemy, unless there enemy ordnance to consider as well which takes priority.

Skills usually consist of stasis and disruption bombs to deter the enemy from closing in. MWJ might be useful as well to get some easy torps and rams but I haven't used it anymore since the delay was added.

Upgrades offer few possibilities, depending which ship you chose as admiral and subfaction of choice.
As you said detection can be an issue, but against this setup, most factions will want to close in fast. Still waiting on the Eldari matchup.

Regarding your fleet, I like the idea much as well. Styx and Acherons for the lance support/scouting and Carnages for macro power.
My only gripe is the Carnages can get crited fast so you have to be extra careful about them. And Infidels but I guess you wanted to use all points possible without changing the whole fleet

@tr3iz said in Chaos:

@torgen said in Chaos:
Indeed, alpha is somewhat low but the amount of crits tend to make up for it. The task is simple: always focus the nearest enemy and disable it(prio 2+ engines/gen) and as soon as flagship is visible, set it as priority 1.

Crits are too RNG heavy to rely on as a main damage source. Also to get engine crits you have to be behind your enemy. Which hardly ever happens as chaos.

Desolators can kite a bit with the 200 speed they have but the absence of HET can hurt against torpedoes or keeping up dps. But with high reload time on lances, the effect is diminished a bit. They are tanky enough to be able to boost out of range without taking too much damage unless the enemy ignores the other 3 ships. With Deso admiral you can go as far as having it on front line to deploy the bombs fast and provide a juicy bait, risky nonetheless.

And with the Despoiler set on reload in the back line with its 3(4) launch bays you have a decent chance of scouting the front line if there aren't any clouds in the immediate vicinity and it will punish the first ship that enters it's range to brawl with the Desos. Except the initial scouting, despoiler bombers are only sent after the most isolated/nearest enemy, unless there enemy ordnance to consider as well which takes priority.

Skills usually consist of stasis and disruption bombs to deter the enemy from closing in. MWJ might be useful as well to get some easy torps and rams but I haven't used it anymore since the delay was added.

Upgrades offer few possibilities, depending which ship you chose as admiral and subfaction of choice.
As you said detection can be an issue, but against this setup, most factions will want to close in fast. Still waiting on the Eldari matchup.

Eldari are gonna tear you up.
They will be able to dictate battles much easier cause you lack ships for flanking or suprises.

Regarding your fleet, I like the idea much as well. Styx and Acherons for the lance support/scouting and Carnages for macro power.
My only gripe is the Carnages can get crited fast so you have to be extra careful about them. And Infidels but I guess you wanted to use all points possible without changing the whole fleet

Well, I'm yet to run a fleet that works well vs all races.
The 4bb fleet above got me into gold rankings the past week, i'll see how it does further. For the time being it feels a bit cheesy as it's hard to down a BB without good focus.
I find eldars of all kinds are rare these days, running mostly into necrons and human factions. Still waiting on an Ork to ruin my day also.

Another thing that needs to be addressed are the perks. This applies to all factions in the game thats for sure. Chaos does not need 4 or so perks that favor boarding. If i want to play a chaos boarding fleet. I can play World Eaters. So id suggest dumping Chaos Marines and change Hell Drakes to benifit Squadrons as a whole. Demonic Infestation can be changed and buffed to put tonnage in consideration. I like the Idea behind Demonic Infestation as it is very chaosy and could be buffed to favor mass escort
gameplay.

@canned_f3tus said in Chaos:

change Hell Drakes to benifit Squadrons as a whole.

What do you mean by that? Doesn't it affect boarding craft? This should be changed immediately if so.
Demonic Infestation really needs scaling with ships.

@tr3iz said in Chaos:

@canned_f3tus said in Chaos:

change Hell Drakes to benifit Squadrons as a whole.

What do you mean by that? Doesn't it affect boarding craft? This should be changed immediately if so.
Demonic Infestation really needs scaling with ships.

no does not effect assaultboats
when a upgrade mentions boarding actions it only means boarding actions
when a upgrade refers to boarding, lightning strikes and assaultboats it calls it a assault action like for example

@tr3iz drakes increase boarding crits but id like to see them actually make drakes improve all squadrons in some way. I would like them to move away with the heavy boarding focused perks thay chaos has..

Yeah, I was under the impression that assault craft are also considered boarding actions, because of the launch bay requirement. Good to know.
What fleets have you been running lately?

@tr3iz been running with 2 despoiler 2 executors and 4 infidels.

@canned_f3tus

GCs seem like the way to go nowadays. A bit more range on Executor and Retaliator would be appreciated but they still work. How does it fare against nids? I assume the Execs are the meatshield until the Despoilers clear close threats

Later Edit:

Made a similar fleet(3 idolators and 1 infidel only difference). Had quite some fun against Navy (3BB + GC and escorts) and Tau(2BBs and Tolkus). Executors and 3 escorts draw the fire while Despoilers grind lone targets from half the map away.
As soon as the enemy commits on taking the Executors, Despoilers close in from flank/back.
Seeing how under-used the Execs are, I'm happy with the results.

Only issue I encountered is deciding which ship to be flagship. Despoilers stay quite far away for most of the match to make heavy use of ordnance and not become a prime target for engaging. So too far away for most skills to be useful. Makes me think MWJ+ other is best so it can help where needed in due time. Executors on the other hand get plenty of action and opportunities but are at risk.