So I just feel like venting into the void and hopefully some may prove me wrong here...

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But I am uncomfortable with the idea that I find Tau to be more fun to play on paper than Eldar. While I will reserve my final judgement for when the indexes come out but I just feel like we lost a lot of flavor. So brace yourselves because I am about hit us with walls of text.

1. The new strands of fate is actually great. I don't mind it but I'm just a little sad that its so front loaded. Once you roll the strands that's it. There is no more interaction with your army rule outside of Farseers manipulating them. This is fluffy to me so I am willing to overlook this small gripe.
2. I do not understand the point of Eldar anymore. We lost Battle Focus, which is fine because I thought it was too unhealthy for the game, but that removes our move-shoot-move identity. Our hyper specialized identity has been taken by the primaris units which are more durable than us so I feel like we're not that hyper specialized faction anymore. We lost most of our psychic power with the phase going away and being replaced with flavorless shooting profiles and somewhat-flat passives. While it increases our power level and consistency in getting the powers off, we don't feel like the quintessential psychic faction anymore (that title is now held by the nids). So I struggle to see what the faction identity is anymore. If it is fate manipulation through strands and our absurd reroll mechanics, then I think there are so many other flavorful ways of conveying that. I just find the free reroll to be a very boring detachment and incredibly strong.
3. Eldrad got done dirty. Ahirman and him I see as the premier psychic units (maybe tTiggy and Mephiston a few others) yet somehow we only have two spells to speak of. People seem to like Mind War but I fail to understand why. It requires Eldrad to be within 18 inches of a character and visible. This would either mean: you never get to use it because characters will be screened out , or you have to be out of position to use it due to the short range. Yes, you can put Eldrad into a unit of guardians (and warlocks but we havent seen their stats) but a unit of guardians are not a great bodyguard unit. They die to lasguns and bolters. And without reattaching Eldrad, I feel like you are only really taking him for Doom and the 3 strands. The 3 strands is great and I have no problems with it. Doom as a power, should be accessible to other seers. If it isn't then I'll be very disappointed. The new Doom is fine with me as I see it as a healthier version of 9th. I just feel that Eldrad being our defacto leader is kind of a whimp when compared to something like the Neurotyrant...a nameless Tyranid monster leader that has more psychic powers than both Ahriman and Eldrad.... It just feels like we got cheated out of Farseers being a swiss army knife/ glue of our faction.
   
4. With the drop of lethality within the game, GW somehow forgot about what made Eldar a problem child in the first place. While yes, HoD was very oppressive, I feel that Support Weapons have been the most aggravating thing to play against (Swooping Hawks are in a league of their own). I play Ynnari, and I play them competitively. I almost always took at least one squad of three support weapons and never took them in friendly games. I feel like they hit just as hard in 10th than they do in 9th. It spits out mortal wounds which I thought was the objective of 10th, to reduce mortal wounds. That's why they removed the psychic phase? The weapons just feel uninspired. The same applies to the scorpions. Scorpions in my head, were the answer to Space Marines, but it seems that they wont be able to go toe to toe with them due to the damage drop off.
   
5. Power level. Eldar feel like a top tier army. They are 100% S tier in my mind. They beat out any other faction by a pretty significant mile. We have a more front loaded Miracle Dice system, which allows for alpha strikes with our scorpions and infiltrating units (and Warp Spider that move 24"....). We have an insane detachment rule for free rerolls. We have Vypers that can remove cover from units. We have the aforementioned Support Weapons which vomit Mortal Wounds. We have insane battle line troops like rangers who can kite the enemy and guardians who give us more value. This is all great to me. Its always fun being the villain of the meta. But I know what its like to have our faction to be knee capped...I mean this in the nicest way possible. But I wish that we weren't so strong because we would have less eyes on us. As it stands, I feel like we're the problem child.

I'm so sorry. I just felt like venting. I tried to talk to some of my friends about it, most of them are just telling me to be patient while also failing to understand the difference between flavor vs strength. I understand this type of thing happens with the indexes and we haven't seen any of the points but...I just feel like we lost a lot of flavor and gained way too much strength in return. So my final question is, should I feel uncomfortable with the idea that my favorite faction will not be my favorite faction to play? Tau look so much more flavorful and fun to me...Thank you, and I apologize for the wall...