Mengsk was between mid and high-tier and dropped to mid-tier. The nerf was actually not big overall, it just hurt early game. In the late game you can still get endless Mandate to spam top bars with. The problem right now is actually getting to late game. The buffs he got also help late game but not early on and they are units that won’t see much play anyway. The Tanks and BC units are simply better in every situation. A couple of rank 3 Prides can wipe out an entire wave if hybrids almost instantly with yamato cannon.
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Right? The entire reason I stopped playing Diablo 3 is because Sets got so out of hand it completely killed build creativity; why bother coming up with interesting builds and hunting for gear that enables that build when you can go with the cookie-cutter Roland’s Set build that buffs the damage of two particular skills by 13000%, as an example. No, people who have not played D3, I am not exaggerating that number.
Oh, they absolutely test and balance them before release, but never underestimate the difference between having a few people test them in a controlled environment versus a few thousand people testing them in a live environment. It is so rare that a new piece of content is released perfectly balanced (not to mention free of bugs) that it’s a god-damn miracle when it happens.
If you play Heroes of the Storm, you got to see a dozen examples of this over the past few years; a new hero released roughly every other month, in a competitive environment, and nine times out of ten, they were always at least a little overpowered. And then, like clockwork, they would get some degree of nerfs about two weeks later. I could count on one hand the number of times the reverse happened, where a hero was released underpowered and then got buffed. Why? Well, the cynical answer would be the example you gave, where the developers make them overpowered intentionally to get people to buy, then nerf once the honeymoon period was over, and that’s certainly a valid possibility.
But during an AMA some time back, one of the dev team gave a different answer; I wish I could find the exact quote, but IIRC, it was something along the lines of “we try to release characters on the stronger side because our top priority is to make sure they’re fun to play, and because we get much better data from our players. The times when we released someone and they ended up on the weaker side, many more people were unhappy because they felt short-changed, and it was much harder to get enough data to see where the hero needed fixing because fewer people were playing it. So we aim high initially and then dial it back later.”
Which is right? Hard to say. Some degree of both probably. The end result is the same: nerfs happen, even in PvE content, even in single-player PvE content, and it’s the responsibility of the players to understand that those nerfs are often justified.
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Don’t go underestimating the power of his Aegis Guard, three of them (the rough vespene cost of an Augustgrad) will wipe ground waves with just an A move. Blackhammers aren’t that far off, backwards Liberators with a huge defence buff aren’t something to scoff at.
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Yes, I was surprised how quickly they nerfed Mengsk.
When the first revamps were announced, I expected future commanders be balanced around that on release (no useless units to begin with for example).
The thoughts they put into revamps should have been applied during creation of new commanders.
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Aegis guards are good against small numbers of tough armored units such as hybrids, whereas Tanks are better against everything else. Blackhammers’ extra armor is nice if you’re facing a low damage enemy, but that was never a problem for Mengsk. The things that kill his army is usually AoE damage or mutators which the extra armor won’t help against. You’re better off just massing Prides and Troopers.
Nah, remember that Aegis Guard have splash attached to their attacks too. They do similar damage to a siege tank with the splash, but considerably higher damage to the main target. Plus it’s a fan behind the target so they tend to hit more units than the Tanks.
Personally, I’ve found making one Augustgrad then either Aegis for ground or Tanks for air is best.
You’re absolutely right though that stuff like black death just spells the end to his Troopers though.
In my experience, Aegis guard struggled against swarms of enemies, particularly early game. Maybe the splash you’re referring to is their upgradable slow effect? If they do AoE damage too, it’s low enough that I didn’t even notice.
If you need anti-air, rocket Troopers are great and they don’t cost gas, allowing you to get Aegis guards, Tanks or Prides as needed. I have not yet found a situation where the Ghosts or Blackhammer are necessary.
Oh yea and the Sky Furies are trash not even worth mentioning, to the point I forgot they exist.
Edit: Ok I checked the wiki and you’re right that Aegis Guards do aoe damage, but it’s a measly 20% and only at rank 2. I will still prefer Tanks against large numbers of ground enemies.
Rank 2 they pick up a fan splash that’s 20% of their attack. Doesn’t sound like much but it’s pretty comparable to the Tank’s damage. Given the cost or supply difference Aegis come out ahead for splash damage, and way ahead in single target.
Really it’s a choice between air attack and short duration stun, versus health and long term slow.
Bearing in mind, an Aegis gets to rank 2 just after Augustgrad hit rank 1. They’ll hit rank 3 before Augustgrad gets to 2 as well.
I was initially hoping to get some refund in the form of Battle net credit, which I could spend to purchase something else that Blizzard sells, but that is probably far from what Blizzard is willing to do.
If, (a big IF), Devs are willing to provide compensations, they can probably find a better solution…
Ah, thank you for sharing this comment, and I believe it is a fair point. It is both good to know that making money isn’t the sole goal of release-strong-then-nerf strategy, but also sad to know that it IS the strategy that they use.
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I personally prefer a weaker or average start with gradual buffs to make it into the fold but I accept they don’t want people never to touch a Commander/whatever they released because of a negative first impression. Many things can make the community perception negative.
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But remember it took Blizzard many patches to Buff Fenix.
Blizzard over nerfs but under buffs usually.
But I think Blizzard will probably do what you suggest. That’s why I won’t buy new commanders on release anymore.
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What I prefer is them actually doing balance. I am not necessarily a fan of what they are doing, being slow with their patches and trying to do a lot at one time, being silent in others. I think the fact this is a PvE mode would allow them to experiment with small changes that can be implemented slowly, and see what the players do, how they react, etc.
I don’t expect them to buff up Karax in a week, but they could improve a few things every patch and gradually improve him. They are not doing what I want because they are slow with their buff and nerfs, and they often overgo. When they are not doing an underwhelming change. The good stuff is just often left without a mention, so yeah, they do get things right as well.
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Zeratul okay but Mengsk no way.
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The main nerf for mengsks was to the third mastery and people play brutal fine with him before that. In fact that particular mastery was a huge powerspike for a commander who already had one of the easiest time for early saturation.
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Yeah with Fenix it took extrem long time until people really took him and Blizzard needed to gift him so people start trying him out again. I think with this haste nerf of Mengsk the same thing will happen.
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Because before I started playing him myself (for free) I didn’t know how fun he actually was because prior to playing him myself all I saw of him was people going mass carriers with a hero unit in front and that looked BORING as hell.
Once I got to play him with his higher levels and I got a chance to realize how fun 6 champions are to control and wreck stuff with I fell in love with him. I didn’t know he could do that because all anyone would do is mass Carriers.
Blame the players IMO for being bad advertisers for what he was. Zeratul’s mass cannons has the same problem btw. That playstyle is BORING, SUPER BORING, why would I want to level up a CO that plays that way? Lame.
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For players like me, they’re more fun to play now.
It’s not like a Hearthstone nerf where PvP pushes optimal strategies and nerfs obliterate cards from the meta.
If you don’t like using cannons the solution always was very simple: don’t do it! Zeratul had other viable options.
The real reason is people did not want their Zeratul partner to use cannons. They have this competitive mind set about coop, and want to “do better” than the partner.
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They’ve largely done that kind of power creep with only mutations on the AI side.
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Yeah, part of why I lost my taste for mutations a long time ago and why I wasn’t thrilled they were made a part of Brutal+. The initial mutations were interesting combat puzzles, figuring out the best commanders to suit the conditions, but they’ve gotten really out of hand since then.
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