It heals only 125hp/45second: (rate of heal is 2.77 hp/s); while costing 125 gold.
Human scroll of regeneration heals 225/45second: (rate of heal is 5hp/s) while only costing 100 gold.
I get that you get two charges on ritual dagger but you need to realize undead is fast-paced that relies on an successful early game to dominate.
Unlike human, who can use defend on tier 1 units and staff of sanc Undead can’t.
Undead cannot just turtle for 45 seconds with a weak heal, (useless cannibalize) in actual fast-paced games where creeping and expanding happens.
The only solution to this is either change cannibalize or revert change to dagger to instant heal while nerfing heal from like 300hp to 200hp per charge.
The reason undead should get this dagger is because they sacrifice a unit so it should have a stronger effect than other races tier 1 heal.
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An instant heal would have to be way less. A scroll of healing 250gold and heals 150hp. You get two charges that can be used on rod Skeles. Its a circumstantial item for sure but it’s better than nothing.
I’m not sure how to balance it because you do have a Rod of Necromancy. It’s not like your sacking ghouls. There’s untapped potential but it doesn’t fit the current Meta.
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So I’m spending 150 to buy rod and effectively killing two skeletons or one charge (25% of rods 4 charges). This is wasting 40g to use dagger.
Which then makes daggers true cost 175g for its crappy heal it needs a buff
2 Likes
150, 250 is the gold cost.
Ah sorry, will edit. I’m not a UD main but the item is interesting. Just trying to point out that an instant heal does exist and it changes battles drastically.
You can always sack a skeleton near the end of its life or when it’s low on health. Equating it to reducing the effectiveness of your rod by 25% is misleading. Giving undead too much early regen could easily make them overpowered as they are very strong at pressuring early. This is why the item is so weak compared regen with the other races. Undead are the only race with a universal summon and this combined with cheap melee units means they can very easily put on a lot of pressure very early. Give them access to heals at the level of the other races and you would very quickly create an op situation imo. When I’m playing with my human friend and I’m undead I often abuse his store and it becomes pretty evident that my momentum takes off more than usual (and I don’t believe that undead has a super weak early game as it is).
I talked about the Ritual dagger already in detail in my recent post, so I’m not going to repeat it. You can check my post history for very detailed analysis and suggestions for balance. I agree, the Ritual dagger is terrible in its current iteration.
UD needs multiple changes. First, Ghouls need to be actually worth using as fighting units. They are not right now because they stayed the same while tons of units and heroes got big buffs. Archers got HP buff, Huntresses, Treants, Riflemen, Headhunters, Farseer and his wolves, Keeper, Alchemist, Water Elemental damage. All these units/ heroes got buffs. Ghouls got no changes for their earlygame which makes them unusable to walk out on the map with them as they just get killed too easily and feed exp.
Once Ghouls are actually worth using, we will see more of them. And we might see Cannibalize being used. This way, UD only needs healing on his main hero. Therefore I have already suggested to turn Dagger into an item similar to healing salve, but only work on heroes and regenerate much more HP, and faster than it currently does.
Tl;DR:
Increase Ghoul HP by 20, increase armor by +1/+2. Add upgrade on T2 for +40 HP. Increase Ghoul cost from 120 to 130. Change ritual dagger to work similar to heal salve, but only work on heroes.
Congratz, now you have fixed UD healing earlygame, allowed more hero variety and finally given UD more unit choices besides Fiends only for most of the game until t2 and t3 are unlocked.
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They did a ghoul hp buff a few years Ago on tft beta. It was overpowered vs human. They reverted it.
So no I don’t think that matchup needs to be any more imbalanced as it already is.
The game right now isn’t comparable to tft beta at all. Ontop of the huge number of changes, mainly buffs to most units and heroes, ping also got much lower. This means melee units are weaker then before as every player is able to make more precise movements, which benefits ranged units more than melee units.
A short list of recent changes which made Ghouls worse:
Every hero gaining additional movement speed, like MK, Paldin, TC, Naga and many more.
Archers +15 HP.
Riflemen attack buff.
Huntress Attack buff.
Treant Attack buff.
Archer t3 upgrade attack buff.
KotG entangle buff.
Alchemist poison vial buff.
Pitlord Cleave buff.
Riflemen attack speed buff.
Headhunter Range buff. Headhunter health buff. Troll Berserker health buff. Troll Berserker regeneration buff. Troll berserker “berserk ability” buff.
Farseer chain lightning and wolf summon buff.
Tauren Chieftain Stomp buff.
Mountain King clap buff.
Dreadlord carrion swarm buff.
Tauren buff (made more accessible)
Shaman attack damage buff
Witch Doctor attack damage buff
Water Elemental attack damage buff.
In summary, the earlygame changed massively. Every race but UD got big buffs to either/ and heroes and earlygame units. UD got mostly improvements in terms of economy. DK is still paramount. Ghouls didn’t exactly get worse, but they got MUCH worse in comparison to everything else. This is why they simply do not work.
Do yourself a favour and watch Final of Happy vs Lyn, the game where happy chose to build Ghouls from the start of the game and gets absolutely destroyed. Had he made Fiends instead, the game would have looked much different. Players are also teching much faster nowadays than they used to, so Ghouls become obsolete much faster.
I see where you’re coming from now.
I still disagree that the game isn’t comparable to where it was at say 1.14 - lots of those elements exist and are still powerful by today’s standards and the smallest tweaks could change the entire meta. Look at what happened when say Mana burn or entangle was tweaked…same exact effect as say end of reign of chaos.
I’m of course just speaking about the ghoul which I think is a pretty balanced unit.
I’m not sure happy vs Lyn was a ghoul issue - I see far more issues with other aspects of the orc vs undead matchup like the mid game which cause issues.
But if you look at the ladder win rates (which are relevant for balance since that’s where majority of the players play) - undead vs human is the biggest margin of imbalance to this date. It was worse in earlier patches but it’s still ridiculous. Ghouls tear human up on certain maps and a health boost would make it worse
I’m an elf player so You might have more insight but that’s what I see on high level ladder
Ladder statistics is not enough to show balance. Take a look at the last 4 tournament rankings:
https ://warcraft3.info/articles/311/player-earnings-2019
HU makes up 34% of player earnings alone. HU has the most players ending in high positions. Not just Infi and TH000, even lower tier players are suddenly rising up due to huge buffs to Human and favourable matchups against Orc and extremely favourable matchups against Nightelf. Months ago, TH000 destroyer Moon in a final, made him look like a fool and he admitted, HU gets stronger every patch and the game isn’t fair.
Especially in Human vs UD matchup, which can almost entirely depend on the earlygame. HU goes for expansion and fails micro while attacking creeps, UD comes to steal creeps and kills too many peasants equals essentially game over.
What you see on the highest level play requires much more effort than it might appear. When your standard ladder Human player goes out to creep, how often does he juggle aggro properly? How often does he mess up lightning shield trick on his archmage, only to have it hurt multiple militia? How often do you see him pulling a golem camp correctly instead of eating boulders on multiple units?
This is not even about the Ghoul. UD doesn’t even use Ghouls against human because they are too bad. All UD uses are skeletons from Rod of necromancy in the earlygame. And by the way, this item received a big nerf. Skeletons got an hp increase from 180 to 190. You might think this is a buff, but its not. This HP threshhold causes creeps to automatically purge skeletons, which they did not do at 180 HP. This is a big nerf to UD ,of course not in pro play, but to your ladder statistics. Ontop of that HU got simply insane buffs to Flying Machines, while the unit they already counter, the Destroyer, got big nerfs. As a result, UD struggles even more against Orc because Destroyers get picked off too easily by buffed Troll Headhunters. And Nightelf struggles against Human because of big buffs to Riflemen and Mountain King with his insane Thunder clap. You can even play mass Flying Machine against Nightelf in some niche situations.
Thunderclap changes alone were enough to completely remove the Blademaster vs HU. But now, Orcs do not have any way to deal with Breakers properly. Once HU gets a 6-10 Breaker wall, Orc simply has no way to deal with HU army anymore. Wyverns get shackled by invis Dragonhawks or Stormbolted. Water Elemental damage got increased so they counter them aswell.
Undead is beating human In pro tourneys too though. Wgl winter was pretty even with us taking the cake at the highest level.
As a tourney player and top ladder player - I disagree with ladder stats not meaning anything. That’s seriously 95% of your player base especially in warcraft 3. The top tier tourney players make up like 1% of all gamers. (Put it this way - look at grandmaster league in starcraft. That is a very very small percentage of your playerbase - if I’m playing top 20 on American ladders that puts me in a small percentage too - but think of how many players are below that - thousands.
/rant over
I think human numbers went up because of hero buffs - as a night elf player it’s really frustrating because there’s a point where the hu army is literally unbeatable.
If we wanna stick to the topic about ritual dagger - I’m personally thinking the item needs to go away. I never see it used and the gold is better used elsewhere. Even with a unique dread lord or lich opening.
the top undeads of past like madfrog love their ghouls. Cannibalize is a great ability tbh - many average players forgot all about it though
Yea sorry for going off topic a bit too much.
My point still stands though. Even if the ritual dagger became a good item, it wouldn’t do much. You won’t suddenly use Ghouls because they suck compared to Fiends and all the issues I have explained in detail above. There is no reason to change the core of the UD army without having actual stat changes that give a viable alternative to Fiends.
I heavily disagree that the top Undeads love Ghouls. When do you ever see Ghouls actually work? So far its only Happy and that is in very specific circumstances: He plays against Orc and loses 2 Fiends and trades units in the earlygame. Then he is able to consistently pull away Ghouls when at 5 -20 HP. No one else on the entire world can do this. This is the only case when Ghouls look actually good. They turn out to be incredibly weak for everyone else who does not have world champion micro. This is no way to call a unit balanced or good.
Madfrog is not a fitting example. Madfrog hates using Fiends, always has. He is a good player and he clearly plays a suboptimal style but he has so much practice and skill that he can make it work against most people. But he would still be hopeless in a real competitive setting with his Ghoul style, especially when facing a better player.
Of course with the changes I suggested Ghouls can easily become a core unit. Just like Huntresses, Headhunters, Riflemen all received buffs and became core units. Then you change the Dagger to only work on heroes like a healing salve, buff it in terms of total healing and regeneration and you still have cannibalize for Ghouls.
After this, UD only needs a real working Necromancer rework and finally UD needs buffs on his Crypt Lord who has been ignored for way too long. Similar change to Farseer: Buff the Carrion beetles, which are the worst summons in the game. Increase HP and damage by 15-20%. Increase Impale stun duration slightly or remove 1 second of invulnerability. Increase damage slightly.
Congratz, now you have allowed UD an entirely new playstyle: Crypt Lord or Dreadlord fast expand, Ghouls, Necromancers and hopefully Gargs once their AI is fixed. UD has potential for much more interesting armies than what everyone has been forced to play for years. But just like the other 3 races, it will have to come by buffs to units.
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Yep. Gotta agree with you. Ud has always had some of the most boring army comps since the beginning and honestly nothing has really been done to change that. The most “flavorful” thing we have seen is prolly mass gargs - and even that is really boring to play against, as or observe.
Don’t even get me started on heroes :/.
Not really sure what can be done exactly. Crypt lord is def in a weird spot. He theoretically has a great kit to be a starter since he gets summoned units - but skellies are just as effective - and his aoe is just meh…I mean if impale was improved I guess I could see it helping him out?
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Actually its quite easy to make Crypt Lord into a good hero. Its similar with Farseer.
First, blizzard has to acknowledge that Carrion Beetles are the worst summons in the game and buff them. Like 15-20% buff on HP and damage. Other people have mentioned things like magic resistance/ magic immunity. Or healing while burrowed similar to Crypt Fiends. I see lots of potential with these, however if they do not get some kind of dispel resistance or magic immunity, they will simply get stolen by Breakers, Dispelled by NE with wisps and Dispelled by Orc and turn out useless.
Everyone agrees that Impale is a good spell, but has big issues. The animation is too long. The fact that impaled, airborne units are invulnerable is a huge issue which directly detracts from the stun duration and effectiveness of this spell. Blizzard has recently buffed stomp, one of the strongest spells in the game and level 3 is outright overpowered with a 5 second stun on a 6 second cooldown. Stomp needs a big nerf, and impale needs a buff to bring both spells closer. Impale needs the mentioned quality of life changes so that airborne impaled units can be attacked. And it should either receive a reduced mana cost or increased damage.
Last but not least: The carapace passive. This is even less useful in comparison since Rings of Protection are much more useful now. One point of this skill is not much more useful than picking up 1 Ring of protection which isn’t very good.
I suggest the following: Simply make this spell work like Orc’s spiked barricades! Melee attackers attacking the Crypt Lord receive something like 6/10/14 damage + % damage depending on attack damage. Now you have successfully turned this ability into being useful. Something between evasion and immolation against melee attackers.
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UD is the best race in pro scene right now. Not only that, recently more tier 2 UD pros are sprouting and tournies are starting to have more and more UD vs Orc or UD vs HU only.
Let’s first BALANCE matchups before going anywhere else. As the patch stands, game is far more imbalanced than back in 1.26~1.28 in competitive play.
No need to give the best race in game the best early in game. In case you haven’t noticed, blight + unholy aura + statue is the best passive free heal as the game progresses.
So if you are planning to make this item viable, either nerf unholy aura + statue or change how UD works.
As it is right now, any additional item will only benefit the standard UD meta even more. Because a maxed out fiend does more damage than a maxed out bear (???), that focus damage alone with nuke (coil nova) on a orb of corruption will deal the best instant damage in game.
And in this game, as long as you can snipe a hero, you can win a losing game.
So no matter what items we introduce, essentially, DK will be used due to mobility and heal/nuking. In other words, this will only benefit standard UD play more instead of creating diversity.
As long as the entire UD tech tree is built up from Death Knight, DK will have to be staple first (in most games) just like AM or Blade.
Imagine DK early game with its usual harass in pro scene in addition to healing. UD vs NE and UD vs HU would be completely screwed over if the matchups aren’t already screwed over at top scene.
Having stated that, I do agree this item as it is right now isn’t that useful. But at the same time, if UD can heal early game on a hero like DK or an all in ghoul rush or fast expand with DL, then that too in itself could lead to balance issues.
Do we make it so that you can only access the item when you have heroes like crypt lord (aka only summons outside skellies to force alternative heroes) while the healing is of much bigger impact? Or we do let every hero benefit regardless and potentially break current game balance at top level?
Why are you guys so afraid of changing the meta? It’s refreshing after years of strategies that have been relatively the same. Some times you have to break things down a bit before you can build something better. IMO it’s better if Blizz over buffs a hero like CL or ghouls that drastically changes the meta, because then it’s just a matter if dialing it back like what happened with KotG and Alchemist. Doing safe incremental improvements to things that never see the light of day will just go largely unnoticed and people won’t play it enough to give it a proper test.
I think it’s a mistake to be afraid of change that will cause ‘balance issues’. The game has suffered from balance issues ever since TFT butchered casters, and before that. I’d much rather there be chaos for a while if it leads to more things becoming viable than continue on this path of having so many units/abilities/strategies/maps not even considered as part of the game anymore. Do you have any idea how many mercenaries there are that most people have never seen? And why are the anti-spellcaster units always played when nobody ever uses spellcasters??
If you think a small buff to ghouls is too much of a challenge for human, then I think this guy has something to say about that:
X_https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKYKzjkfRrk
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How come you almost never see stuffs like mass footmen late game (or mass grunts or anything for that matter) and you don’t see any other players complaining about such.
Why are UD so stubborn in wanting to mass tier 1 basic lumber units all throughout game. They already got a tier 1 unit (fiends) that can compete to other races’ tier 3.
I don’t see mass hunts vs UD tier 3 army for that matter. Or mass grunts. Or mass foots.
What’s the fetish with having ghouls in late game. Do we want WC3 to be mass tier 1 game?
Human is already massing rifles vs Elf tier 3. UD already masses fiends. Orc masses grunts vs NE’s mass hunts.
What’s the purpose of tech tree and all if all we care about is massing tier 1 units?
Anyways, the core problem with UD is that the entire race is built off DK, Lich, Orb, Fiends.
DK has movement speed, passive healing, nuke, active healing, instant survival heal by denying unit kill.
Lich benefits from DK on heal/speed while able to nuke and focus target (and get unlimited mana off skeletals).
Fiend does some of the highest damage in game at tier 1 and all this together with orb just makes the race a great focus fire race.
So anything that benefits WC3 would just be an “addition” to this DK/Lich/Fiends/Orb.
Having stated that, I do agree Crypt Lord’s beetles do need some rework. But not at Serpent Ward level. That summon spell is quite overpowered for its cost.
I would recommend honestly dagger only work on hero’s summoned units while having better regen ability.
I do not want ritual dagger benefiting heroes like DK or Lich. Nor do I want to see DL mass ghoul tower rush every game.
And I am afraid of changing the meta after the entire mgs in 1.30 and current rifles/mk in 1.31.
Pros who make a living out of this game just loses 1 sidedly.
4v4 players might not care but WC3 without a pro scene would die quick after Reforged.
And fyi, the worst overall heroes in WC3 belong to Elf as Elf has no synergy.
UD goes dk lich d ranger or dk lich dl or dk lich panda or dk naga lich or dk lich tinker
HU goes am mk pally or am mk or am pally mk or bm mk pally or mk bm pally or am alchemist or am naga
Orc goes BM SH or BM TC or SH TC or FS SH
Elf goes Potm or Keeper Alchemist or DH Naga (elf can’t even go its own racial heroes from tier 2)
Yes, Elf has bad heroes. Orc/Hu are the only races with 4 viable heroes. And, yes, I do see every race with tier 1 units in their army late game. There just aren’t that many units in this game for an RTS. There’s multiple units in every race devoted to countering spellcasters, so it’s no wonder there isn’t much unit diversity. With the high investment cost of making tier 2/3 units, it’s difficult to change what units you’re making. Lowering the cost of Spirit Lodge/Temple of Damned would help a lot in that regard, considering there’s only 2 units made from them. Adjusting the cost on some upgrades would also help.
As for Ritual Dagger, here’s my suggestion:
Adjust health regeneration from 125 over 45 seconds to 100 over 20 seconds. Allow it to be used by sacrificing a unit, or a nearby corpse.
Adjust health regeneration from 125 over 45 seconds to 100 over 20 seconds. Allow it to be used by sacrificing a unit, or a nearby corpse.
That kind of change is too much healing in a short period of time and will break balance at top level.
If you are going to do this, restrict this item to only crypt lord and tavern hero first players. Or in general, just “summoning heroes” instead and have the item work on the summoned unit. Then, I’m fine honestly with even 100 + (summon’s remaining hp / 3) over 25 second.
Otherwise, I’m not for the current ritual dagger. Don’t need DK or Lich or DL buffed in this game currently.