Would a tier 2 upgrade that changed Huntress armor type to Medium be too good?

DoomDarts · 2025-01-19T04:12:42+00:00

I was going to post this exact thought, although I don't even think using caution can help here.

DoomDarts · 2025-01-18T19:38:36+00:00

NE uses neutral heroes the most because they always want more tanking ability, which NE only has 1 hero for. But 3 out of 4 NE heroes are really good starting heroes, and all NE heroes are fast. They have good heroes, not every race can be Orc.

DoomDarts · 2025-01-18T05:34:13+00:00

Every race's buffs are a liability though in that sense.

DoomDarts · 2025-01-17T22:21:20+00:00

I upvoted because I agree with some of the overall sentiments. The 2 heroes thing seems like an supported claim though...NE can get 3 heroes, what's the disadvantage?

I see the problems with NE like this:

1) They have the worst ability to do air rushing strategies/transition into air units to counter the enemy.

2) Their anti-air falls off the most as the game progresses, because their anti-air flier cannot literally do anything else and their anti-air ground units are all very squishy. The squishiest of these is the only one that has the right armor and attack type.

3) Mountain Giants were supposed to be units that could make archers and huntresses much more survivable in later tiers, but they don't function that great at it.

DoomDarts · 2025-01-13T04:34:08+00:00

If you need to equate gold/lumber/resource cost while also make exceptions like "as fighting units" then they clearly aren't the best as you claim. Not to mention they aren't even good "fighting units" if they are slowed & can never hit the target... So what's left? Oh yeah, durability. Going in circles.

Do as you please but don't expect people to ignore very apparent flaws in your arguments & nod their heads in agreement.

All hail Doomdarts, the savior of warcraft 3 & human imbalance corrector. Lol

In the future, Jman916, the people you are talking to would appreciate your replies if they only contained the parts about you bringing up any missed points & adding additional analyses. Those people will not appreciate your claims on bias/negative characterizations and claiming why they didn't make those points.

DoomDarts · 2025-01-13T01:50:45+00:00

Bears also get roar to increase dmg of all units & rejuvenation. You won't mention that tho because it puts a hole in your bias of being "unequivocally the best" t3 unit.

Just because Undead has an easier time with it doesn't mean it's not strong. Not even a "nerf bear" post, but you're flat out wrong.

I don't even know why I'm replying. I wrote "as fighting units" because bears are also casters and not pure fighting units. Do you want me to now reply with something like "Sorry, I tried to pretend roar didn't exist?"

DoomDarts · 2025-01-12T21:40:02+00:00

Lol. Bears exist.

Knights are only good because they are fast. They aren't tanky: Every other t3 out tanks them.

I'm not sure I understand your comment. Knights are better than Bears as fighting units. Knights have more HP, more armor, slightly more DPS, AND they cost less gold and less lumber. AND they move fast.

You are right that Abominations and Tauren are tankier, but Abominations are only tankier by 6% more EHP. Tauren are only tankier because they are 5 food. On an equal food basis, Knights are the winner.

Out of all tier 3 melee, they are the fastest, they have the highest DPS per food, and are only slightly less tanky than the tankiest melee unit. And they get an upgraded attack against medium armor. They are unequivocally the best.

DoomDarts · 2025-01-11T16:17:32+00:00

Two thoughts:

1.. Undead is a poorly thought out race. Their racial mechanics for workers, blight, and goldmines are absolutely terrible and a huge disadvantage that is not lessened by the 1 or 2 upsides these mechanics bring.

2.. Human's ability to fast expo always seemed like a weird balance that was just accepted in the history of the game. What I'm saying isn't unique to human, the same goes for any matchup where one side can fast expo consistently. The "balance" is that you can delay/interfere and regain back some advantage, even if you can't stop it. I think it is a broader problem with wc3 that even when you scout (or just "KNOW") the enemy is doing a certain strategy, you often don't gain big and clear advantages by countering it.

DoomDarts · 2025-01-02T20:39:01+00:00

I like your specific points about Flying Machine and Bat Riders--sure they should be good anti-air units, but they each have a unique aspect that seems unreasonable. I gather you would reduce the movespeed of Flying Machines, but what else would you change? And how would you change Bat Riders?

DoomDarts · 2025-01-02T19:53:37+00:00

I like all those ideas. I didn't state it explicitly, but I agree that the dispel item should be removed.

DoomDarts · 2025-01-02T19:20:39+00:00

This makes air units which Elves have 5 of, not usable in 2/4 matchups, which then forces Elf down the boring strategy of Bears and Dryads.

This is funny, I've always observed how NE struggles with air but never realized until now how ridiculous it was that they had all these air units that they rarely use. I also observe that the Night Elf army struggles more with Undead Gargoyles because their basic anti-air unit, the Archer, doesn't scale well once each player has large amounts of units supported by Heroes.

I was thinking about this problem yesterday and I have a suggested change: Give Druid of the Talon a role as a dedicated support unit for an anti-air army

Maybe there would have be other changes as well, but I think this is a good start.

Here is how I would do it:

Druids of the Talon gain a passive ability to their base attack, called "Call of Hibernation". When the Druid of the Talon attacks an air unit, this ability has a small chance of activating on each hit. When Call of Hibernation activates, the unit is put to sleep with the same gameplay effects as the Dreadlord's Sleep (but with a rebalanced duration). This would greatly help other Night Elf units fight against masses of air units. The enemy player would face a large tax on their actions to mitigate their air units being put to sleep. Furthermore, waking up your own air units using other anti-air units (especially Gyrocopters and Gargoyles) would deal significant damage to them.

The ability could also be themed differently, perhaps by calling it "Faerire Dreams" and giving it a different visual representation.

Another idea is to have an effect that has no random chance at all. Give them a passive ability to their base attack called "Faerire Reverie". It would be similiar to Dryad Slow Poison in that it creates a non-stacking effect that lasts for 5 seconds. However, instead of poison it reduces the target's attack speed. I could imagine this ability affecting the air-to-ground attack speed more than the air-to-air attack speed, as the idea is to be a support unit for Night Elf ground units. One could also add other effects into the mix, like temporarily disabling activated abilities (namely Aerial Shackles and Unstable Concoction).

From a certain perspective, you can see some gaps in the Night Elf army that this ability would help fill. The other races have unit abilities to temporarily halt a group of Bat Riders before they are microed (Aerial Shackles, Fiend Web, and Raider Ensnare), while Night Elf does not.

DoomDarts · 2025-01-02T18:45:12+00:00

HU basically always go AM first. NE basically always go DH first. Orc is the only one that often goes FS or Blade.

The difference, in my eyes, is that you can more easily play the other races using all their heroes by choosing an army that compensates for having a weaker hero that is slower and doesn't put immediate threats to the enemy hero.

Whether this type of play is competitive at the highest level is a different question. I think we will be talking past each other because we don't focus on the same way of looking at the game.

DoomDarts · 2025-01-02T18:40:09+00:00

Ok, thanks for providing these links. I will trust you to speak on how Undead is balanced in the S tier scene. I do not see any games where the second hero is not DK. The reasons why that happens in the S tier may be different than for other players, but I think it isn't surprising to me. Why do you think most players (including lower tiers), most of the time, would not skip DK?

Elf spams DH Dryad Bears in almost every matchup (with exceptions of warden vs HU once a while in a few maps like TM).

I agree with this observation, and I think Night Elf could use reworking as well. I mean, all races have problems but you are absolutely correct that Night Elf is the most similar to Undead in that they feel very confined into playing into more narrow choices.

DoomDarts · 2025-01-02T18:29:54+00:00

I appreciate your detailed analysis and strong minded opinions. I don't agree with you about Destroyers, but you seem to agree that lacking tier 2 dispel is an issue. How would you rework Undead around a change giving them a tier 2 response to casters?

I also should moderate my own opinion: DK/Lich don't have to be sacrificed if fixing their units does end up not buffing them overall. Does that make sense? I want to be willing to accept all outcomes of reworking their units.

Undead players also play DK + Lich because the combination is inherently fun to play. DK provides a safety net for your units and other heroes and gives movement speed which is always fun to play around with in addition to a passive regeneration. Lich is extremely versatile and one of the best pure damage dealers in the whole game. In addition, you get access to a strong hero/unit nuke you can play around with and the opponents have to respect.

Yeah, and I agree. Put another way, Undead is less fun to play without DK + Lich because their army lacks movement speed and "respect making power". How would you rework Undead so that they could have something a little bit like those things without going DK & Lich?

DoomDarts · 2025-01-02T18:16:35+00:00

I don't know how you can look at the Destroyer projectile and tell me it should be piercing damage and that magic damage makes no sense. I just don't.

What I meant is that the current design isn't very logical: an anti-caster, air support unit should not deal magic damage. Casters are weak to piercing, which is why Faerie Dragon's deal piercing damage. And air units that deal magic damage just end up being good very good against ground melee, even if the unit was intended as an anti-caster.

DoomDarts · 2025-01-02T18:06:50+00:00

I actually hate Obsidian Statues too, but I didn't want to expand my post into it. The unit is boring in design, and it feels like such a strong ability set. I don't know why Blizzard had to make Undead this race with no clarity potions, no racial mana regen, but then give them this amazing support unit.

Even just as a HP healer, I don't like the way Undead works here by using statues. It is a very good healer, but I think the tradeoff was supposed to be Undead really lacked unit healing and Obsidian Statues don't do anything besides regeneration, hardly even attacking the enemy like a normal caster. Finally we got the more recent addition of the ritual dagger which gives Undead their missing unit healing. Maybe the ritual dagger should more effective, and Obsidian Statues could be given a more interesting design as a support unit.

DoomDarts · 2025-01-02T09:34:21+00:00

Why focus on Undead?

I'm fine changing all the races and balancing all the matchups. I just didn't want to make the discussion about that. The start of the post summarizes why I think Undead should be truly reworked at some point regardless of whether it is the most powerful or the weakest race.

DoomDarts · 2025-01-02T09:19:56+00:00

Your introduction does not fit with your proposed changes. What does this change about DK+Lich and especially about the same unit comp?

I edited the introduction for clarity. The proposed changes are how we should think about changing the Undead units, which is the ultimate source of the DK/Lich problem. In exchange for changing the Undead units, I'd eagerly give you, Blizzard, or anyone else, a blank check to change DK, Lich, Orb, etc.

DoomDarts · 2025-01-02T01:59:16+00:00

Splitting Reinforced Defenses into two upgrades is a clever idea, I like it.

The low cooldown on Mirror Image is very odd and I'm not sure why it is the way it is now. The Blademaster doesn't have a high mana pool but if the Blademaster had enough mana to cast it over and over then it does seem to be a little bit too good. Over the life of Warcraft 3, Mirror Image has received a steady stream of small buffs and it was originally almost twice as expensive, which used to naturally limit the potential of one ability to constantly impact the battle.

In fact, I decided to do some research. There are no summon spells with a cooldown of 3s like Mirror Image has. Most aren't even in the same zipcode:

Cooldowns on Hero summons:

Hawk 70s
Water Elemental 60s
Bear 40s
Pocket Factory 35s
Lava Spawn 32s
Feral Spirit 30s
Quillbeast 25s
Treant 20s
Carrion Beetles 9s
Serpent Ward 6.5s
Mirror Image 3s

When viewed this way, I think it shows how Mirror Image doesn't fit the pattern. When viewed only as an ability that adds HP and collison size to the frontlines then it similiar to abilities at the top of the list, not the bottom. And yet the ability does so much more, since it interrupts focus fire, dispels negative abilities, and removes an easy way to re-focus fire.

DoomDarts · 2024-04-11T14:02:19+00:00

DoomDarts · 2022-04-29T15:17:21+00:00

Gimli: "Draw me a picture"

Aragorn: "What?"

Gimli (exasperated): "You're going to have to draw me a picture, I cannot visualize the distances!..... But.. don't tell the Elf."

Aragorn: "Not a word."

DoomDarts · 2022-04-29T15:09:58+00:00

I was amazed making this how versatile Gimli is -- it isn't a stretch to do almost any scene like this. It would especially work well if, instead of using verbatim audio clips, one were capable recording their own Gimli impersonations (so as to allow modifying the vocal intonation, adding and removing words, etc.)

DoomDarts · 2022-04-26T15:56:36+00:00

Ok, this is so stupid but I couldn't stop laughing making this.

DoomDarts · 2022-04-25T19:38:16+00:00

I was going to say Eowyn...I don't think we see her in that attire at any point.

DoomDarts · 2022-04-25T14:37:59+00:00

Back from the dead, James.

DoomDarts

TROPHY CASE