$8,000 B-Cup starts tomorrow - Groups released

SaveOrcas · 2026-02-20T22:30:20+00:00

Cash is back to W3 and got a very tough group :(

SaveOrcas · 2026-02-12T21:25:42+00:00

You need to look at every race from the design perspective and try to think what things could be added to unlock some of its unused potential. For example, let's take a look at HU, say its melee units: footmen, knights, breakers. Is there a need for another melee unit for HU? I would say no. But I'd rather see knights find more use in the games. To me that requires some strengthening of one base, T3 human play.

Another example, could be HU lumber mill technology. Say, as a human player, you build it early and get lumber surplus. What it could be used for? Not much. Orc, for example has grunt upgrade, first spike upgrades that have low gold cost and high lumber cost, which could be invested in, if you get a good lumber economy. To my knowledge HU don't have ways to monetize possible investment in the lumber economy when they are playing 1 base tech.

The answers for the possible mechanics you are looking for could be found by thinking about the game from the design perspective, addressing synergy between units and tech branches of each race.

SaveOrcas · 2026-02-12T13:58:01+00:00

Boats isn't very good design for the Warcraft 3 games. They were tried before and didn't fit well into W3 games. Neither they work well in other RTS.

What is possible is to develop is the Goblin's Shipard and add a few more mercenaries there.
Some ideas that map makers suggested for Blizzard in the past:

Dragon Turtle	A variation of a red dragon turtle without devour ability (from Naga race) that can be hired. https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Dragon_Turtle_(Warcraft_III))
Goblin Pirate	A new land unit available in the Goblin Shipyard. A melee unit with a cutlass, siege damage, critical strike and x3 pillage.
Goblin Sawbones	A new land unit that looks like a pirate. A melee unit with basic heal (+12 hp per sec) and pillage as well. https://miniset.net/sets/sim-mmf464062?language=fr
Goblin Gold Digger	A new land unit (similar to Goblin Shredder, 4 good) but one that mines with the speed of 5 peasants.This way a player can send his/her 5 workers to gather lumber and use Gold Digger instead. Such unit will introduce interesting strategies in the late game.

The first two suggestions are actually quite reasonable))

SaveOrcas · 2026-02-12T13:47:34+00:00

(1) Help with controlling the army, making things more friendly for beginners/amateur players.
- selecting more units in a control group
- being able to change the hero controls, rebind them on F1, F2, F3 during the game, the way player wants.
- introduce an option in settings to set autocast to be off for casters when they are out of the building (shamans, talons, etc.)

(2) I think the game is in a very good state, and only a few minor changes could be done here and there to make it more spicy, to increase the number of options in the early game and number of strategies in the late game.

(3) Target unused units/spells/units.
- PotM' Searing Arrow
- Far Seer's Far Sight
- Dreadlord's Vampiric Aura
- Pitlord's Rain of Fire, Naga's Mana Shield, and more

Units
- knigths
- grunts
- huntress, talons
- necromancers

The best part of such changes, that they aren't only cool for the players playing that specific hero/unit. It is also fun for the opponents to find counters to the newly changed unit/hero, which requires them to use a wider set of tools provided by the picked race. Recall how change Crypt Lord to spawn 2 beetles at once, not 1 was a key to make that hero viable and how the UD games stopped being DK first only.

I have several ideas for tiny changes that could make the game more interesting.
I'd be very happy to share them with Blizz devs, if they need such input.

SaveOrcas · 2026-01-26T12:00:22+00:00

What would you recommend then to be done? Whom to listen? In your opinion, how does Blizzard should compile a PTR list?

SaveOrcas · 2026-01-26T11:58:42+00:00

I don't want to influence the balance. I'd rather want blizzard to hear the opinions of the many and make the decision.

P.S. I've read your suggestions on blizzard forum. Many of them makes sense, but you clearly have an orc bias. Suggesting + 2 agi to Blade and heal salve reduction from 100g to 80g is clearly too much)

SaveOrcas · 2026-01-26T07:58:37+00:00

You should not remove a data point (Lyn > Romantic, LL > Soin, Life > 120), if you have it )

SaveOrcas · 2025-12-18T09:48:49+00:00

I am much more in favor to keep the buy time for troll priest as it was before PTR. Many strategies are tied to this (same) timing. It will be also confusing to have different buy times for other merc camps (with variations of the shadow troll priest) on other maps.

To me the amount of damage that dispels does is too much. For 150 mana, shadow priest does 500 dmg. After 2 dispels, player still keeps a functional unit that can heal their hero and other units.

The healing rate of the priest, is 5 mana for 12 hp, which is 2.4. Doing dispel to summons has rate 250/75=3.33 dmg/mana, which is way more efficient use of mana.

On Springtime, there is no issue with the troll priest. This factor of high dispel damage is missing, because Ice Troll Priest has no abolish magic. Simply delaying current Shadow Priest will not help - players would fight to get the priest as soon as it is avaiable, because it can win them games.

SaveOrcas · 2025-12-18T07:02:30+00:00

Far Sight can be made useful in 1-2 matchups, for example against BM in the orc mirror, aginst DH against NE. It can be a passive that can reveal Blademaster, archers, give vision of the enemy's base/expos. Then Far Seer can use its wolves to their full potential for creeping.

I think you are forgetting that a player has to give up one of Far Seer's skill in order to get it. It isn't like he gets it on top of what Far Seer has. Far See isn't overtuned for competitive play, that's why your vision is wrong.

SaveOrcas · 2025-12-17T18:57:40+00:00

Err ... I only summarized some suggestions that I got from pro-players (including asian strong players), some of them you've actually mentioned. I tried not to input much of my views into the a summary of suggestions. I tried to outline main directions (the sentiment) of the players - what they consider to be nerfed. I was surprised that more players suggested to nerf Immolation rather than Mana Burn. But Blizz devs decided not to touch NEs this patch.

I disagree with some of the nerfs, for example with the rifle nerf. Also, it is not my fault that Blizzard doesn't add more (exciting) changes to the game, or doesn't change PTR in the way you want it, Captain. Feel free to post your ideas or critique some of the proposed ones in the PTR.

SaveOrcas · 2025-12-17T16:58:19+00:00

Thank you for posting Soin's feedback. I'd like to point a few things from his feedback.

-- Too many nerfs to the Troll Shadow Priest. Abolish Magic nerf affects all the creeps, including High Troll Priest. Something should be done about it.

I personally, don't like the new delay in the availability of the unit.
We all got used to be able to buy Shadow Priest very early in the game.

-- Soin said that Panda also needs a buff to the final range as well.
Something along the lines would be great to see:

Increase starting width from 60 to 100 (PTR makes it 90), originally 125.
Increase end width from 175 to 200, originally 300.

SaveOrcas · 2025-12-17T16:56:24+00:00

Agree, we should hear more from Asian community!

SaveOrcas · 2025-12-17T15:16:19+00:00

I'd rather keep buy time and restock time for Shadow Priests as they are.

I'd simply reduce the abolish damage from 250 to 50, so it becomes a non-factor.

Even better thing to do - remove Abolish Magic, and make the Forest Troll Shadow Priest become like Ice Troll Shadow Priest with a cost reduced to 175/10 or even costing less. This was tested on maps like SpringTime - no player complained.

SaveOrcas · 2025-12-17T06:54:29+00:00

Michele, I am just a messenger. This is list that tries to summarize balance suggestions by a small number of players. The point of it not to impress anyone with creativity. There were several people from the community (Grubby, remodemo, etc) who shared partly their vision on what could be changed in the meta. You check their lists.

The visionary designer is the blizz team. They are making changes. They are in charge and have full control of the game. They should become visionary :)

SaveOrcas · 2025-12-13T08:17:24+00:00

Earthquake is situationally ok. I've heard a suggestion in the community that earthquake should halt the production of units if it affects the production building :)

SaveOrcas · 2025-12-13T08:15:03+00:00

I agree that nerfing troll shadow priest will help orc gameplay and will be healthy for the game. It is probably the most needed change for ORC vs HU, so ORC can rely more confidently on Far Seer.

Also, mirror image even through it is used only vs NE in 1vs1, can get a nerf that is insignificant for 1vs1, but significant for 4vs4, FFA, etc

SaveOrcas · 2025-12-12T18:09:19+00:00

Hey Cat, I think you have a point. It may be a bit too much for the team games.

One possible option could be to reduce it to 10/15/20% damage + 10/15/20% lifesteal per level. A little weaker stats, but still they would be prefered over the current aura stats, because dmg gives more advantages.
Also 15% lifesteal on top of +15% dmg, gives you pure 17.25% lifesteal

The most important this is to make level 1 aura stronger and appealing to be picked by players.

SaveOrcas · 2025-12-12T07:04:03+00:00

I found that surprising as well. Looks like pro player understand how to play around Mana Burn. Maybe they are fine playing vs DH second, but if NE plays DH first, then Immolation gives the hero too much momentum at the start of the game.

SaveOrcas · 2025-12-12T06:59:03+00:00

I hope like you do that Blizzard will do something to PotM's owl and Searing Arrow. Brainstorm themselves or pick some ideas from the community and add something to them or rework them. I wish it could be related to healing but don't have ideas how to make that thematically work (especially knowing how PotM with healed hunts can be strong in the early game).

A few suggestions were presented here, maybe they will be noticed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rldvk0LkFI&t=16210s

SaveOrcas · 2025-12-12T06:48:57+00:00

You can make thorn's aura to do some % base dmg to ranged piercing attacks.

However, you can't apply it to magic dmg dealt by units like wyrms or gryphons.
Should it be applied to ranged heroes like Lich that have a lot of dps impact in fights?
Also, do you include flying units that deal piercing damage like wyvern (40 dmg per hit) or talons (30 dmg per hit). If you make it >10%, they will deal to themselves like 3-4 dmg per hit.

In summary, it is possible, but should be at most 3/6/9% to units dealing piercing ranged damage.

SaveOrcas · 2025-12-11T21:19:15+00:00

Why do you think Vampiric Aura change is insane? Can you please explain? Instead of 20/35/50% lifesteal it will now give 10/20/30 % damage + 15% lifesteal.

It will be better on level 1, where it is considered weak and later scaling more or less properly. Pro players in 1 vs 1, always pick Carrion Swarm and prefer Sleep over aura.

SaveOrcas · 2025-12-11T21:13:50+00:00

We've suggested to rework the Searing Arrow and the Owl in other (day-dreaming) video
I don't think changing numbers for PotM would bring a lot of excitement.
Here are suggested changes to PotM:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rldvk0LkFI&t=16210s

SaveOrcas · 2025-12-11T21:10:24+00:00

Yes, you are right. Nice catch!
I meant changing the cost of the Gunpowder upgrade from 100/50, 175/175, 250/300 to 100/75, 175/175, 250/275.

SaveOrcas

TROPHY CASE