Lets face it: Raise dead in its current iteration, will never be a good spell.
In an ideal scenario you need many necromancers and many corpses and even if the opponent has no dispel, the Skeletons are not great. Compare this to any other spell from caster units which have big impact when not dispelled. Apparently the maximum number of Skeletons is capped to 24 aswell.
Even after the Necromancer rework, they are never used because Necromancers are obviosly still a bad unit with bad spells that you have no reason to ever use them because Banshees are better, Skeletons are weak and easily dispelled and incite unholy frenzy is just a worse version of the old unholy frenzy.
So I had a showerthought:
What if raise dead would not summon 2 skeletons, but instead only one with twice the HP and 100% bonus attack damage? (Stats of 2 units put into one.)
The Skeletal mage upgrade would then transform this 1 Skeleton into 1 Skeletal mage with twice the stats.
Pros:
Easier to control. Would not clutter the screen as much. No longer instantly hardcountered by dispel because they stay alive with low hp. Less experience donated to your opponent. More hp would also synzergize better with sacrifice abilities from DK and Lich.
Cons:
Less units available for sacrificial Dagger? I couldn’t come up with anything better. We all know the dagger is super weak at the moment and not even worth spending gold for.
This a new cap? As far as I am aware there was no cap to the number of Skeletons one could have raised at any time other than the rate at which Necromancers can cast Raise Dead due to mana and cooldown limits as well as the availability of corpses to cast Raise Dead on.
The skeletons body block very well. Seeing how the build works with Meat Wagons this can cause decent damage. In fact some people would even call the build over powered if not for abilities like Dispel having large AoE.
This removes one of the main strengths of mass Skeletons. The insane amount of body block they provide. Very few units can escape being surrounded by skeletons, especially if the enemy is trying to retreat.
I think the bodyblock part is a good argument against cutting skeletons in half and making them stronger. Also, Skeletons produced by Rod of Necromancy and Raise dead should probably not be different.
That being said, how about making the Skeleton mages a little stronger? The normal melee Skeletons can be dispelled, but Skeleton mages are immune against it? Also how about giving Skeleton mages a dispel ability for 0 mana but a high cooldown (imagine so they can only use it 2 times before they expire).
Example: Normal Skeleton duration: 40 seconds.
Skeleton mage dispel cooldown: 20 seconds. With skeletal longevity, the raise dead duration is increased to 55 seconds -> if Skeleton mage survives, it can dispel a second time though this needs carefully observing the timeout timer. Adds a high skill cap and rewards players who watch their Skeleton mages.
This would solve one of the biggest problems UD has: Having to tech to t3 fast in every single game and matchups and being completely unable to play on T2 in any matchup.
Necromancers would still need adept training to create dispel skeletons like any other caster
Dispel is tied to corpses and 75 mana for 1 necromancer which is similar to purge from Shamans
Necromancers are still easy targets to kill and remove dispel opportunities
This could open up many new possibilities. In UD vs HU for example, high numbers of flying machines completely shut down any dispel. Likewise, high numbers of Troll Berserkers in Orc vs UD and the mass air strategy from Nightelf all prevents UD from using dispel by targeting their weak destroyers.
No other race in the game can get their only! dispel option shut down so easily that a whole army composition for the enemy is build around it. Every other race but UD has more than 1 unit/ option for dispel.
Why did Blizzard buff Alchemist ultimate from 100% gold gain to 125% and buff Tranquility while not doing anything to Animate Dead, Death and Decay or giving Crypt Lord any improvements?
Because the paladin can revive a maximum of 6 units…and only his own units or Allied units, whilst reanimate revives your units, as well as your opponents/ allies units ( essentially all dead units ) and those units are invulnerable too if i remember correctly … Combine that with collecting powerful corpses using meat wagons … reanimate can become a super scary game winner
Yes paladin revive works on allies as well …i said that, but you can’t revive enemy corpses with that. With the DK version you can. I usually get like 2-3 knights back with resurrect, its been a long time since i got a 6 unit revive, but i do understand that the pala version is amazing … as for the Dk one , i think it can swing fights more , e.g you lose 3 abominations, the other guy loses 2 tauren, you can get his tauren too. I never really noticed the missing abilities thing i Never really noticed, the lack of upgrades was bothersome though, all in all i do agree that the DK version Should be a little stronger, maybe allow it to resurrect more units , or make the ressurected units be able to tank damage, be healed and be treated as undead by spells ( they should not act as Summons for dispell ) , this should all go hand in hand with the ressurected units all being fully upgraded with all abilities to not make enemy unit resurrections undesirable … I was just trying to explain the thought process behind the design teams choice, I’d personally like for reanimate dead to literally raise all corpses or like 24 corpses or something , for a short duration , it should be like an oh f*** Zombie apocalypse moment for your opponent , where their own dead turn against them, but that would be really bad for balance
Also people disengage when reanimate is used so nothing happens because 40 seconds is small time to catch up position and reengage.
If u in enemy base its better but dispel corpses usually happen and then again they cant use abilities so why reanimate necromancers/sprcs/priests/dryads etc?
Bone Vitality (Upgrade):
Increases hit points of skeletons by 50.
Doesn’t seem like much, but skeleton hp is 190 which is below 200 damage dispel damage. Now you need more dispels. Healing scroll might be an option for the raise dead user.
It would be useful if you stated which portion of the game and if the UD player was ahead prior to the engagement. Necromancer’s are a win more unit in my opinion.
In hindsight i think skeletons are fine.
They are quite good for making priests waste mana on dispel and are very cost efficient.
I feel the problem has more to do with the lack of good corpse production, because meat wagons are just bad.
