If really balance is important to fix we have to keep in mind that Warcraft 2 is unbalanced but not by much and can be fixed with very simple number tweaks. Keep in mind that in multiplayer picking the humans is the smallest handicap one can give himself against another player.
Heal mana cost from 6 to 1 per hp healed
Lust mana cost from 50 to 80
Runes minimul mana cost allow the placement of only one rune if not enough mana for all 5.
exorcism mana cost from 4 to 1 per damage dealt
fireball damage x2
ranger/berserker upgrades research costs divided by 3
berserker regeneration interval divided by 2
ballista wind up animation frame moved after the shot is fired so it fires as fast as catapults do.
Mages normal attack range from 2 to 3 to match death knights.
Paying close attention to what value a spell gives in terms of damage done in fine or heal done per mana spent is I feel a good way to balance the game and should help find the proper numbers there.
All these changes would already bring the balance of the game close to perfect and would not change the way the game is played at a high level too much.
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I think the changes you suggest are too massive, although I agree on several points in theory.
I think berserker regeneration should be faster as it is almost useless at the moment.
To compensate, bow range upgrade should give +2 range instead of +1 so that archers can deal their high damage in bigger numbers but still very fragile.
Exorcism is already very powerful. Making it easier to use means that Death knights will always instadie.
I agree with you on Bloodlust and heal. This is where the game has always been unbalanced. While heal is a decent spell, bloodlust is vastly overpowered for its almost permanent spam capabilities.
Think about value given per mana spent and how easy it is to use and get that value from the spells.
Exorcism is only useful against death knights and can only be used at that it is very very situational so making it 4 times more costly than Runes or Coil for the value it gives is really not cutting it.
Hence the necessity to bring that cost down to the same level those other spells enjoy. Coil is 1 for 1 but half of the value isn’t guarantied (the heal) which compensates for the greater ease of use.
Coil still is a lot more valuable than polymorph imo (you can cast it in fow).
This is how I came up with those numbers.
We do agree with troll regeneration but the ranger upgrade does move 3 base damage to piercing allowing rangers to indeed deal lot more damage to buildings and armored units.
Archers are in a very good place at the moment in multiplayer, they have a role to play that other units do not/cannot fit. And yeah no clearly they are not meant to be massed, only against dragons and as a temporary solution.
On land melee units should stay the primary focus because if you make ranged units too strong we start loosing a lot of depth regarding walling/blocking/choking.
But yes as mentioned the upgrades are not really worth the price and could be a lot less expensive without harming the global balance.
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