Lordy Lord the Crypt Lord

Competitive Multiplayer
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I appreciate the recent buffs to make the Crypt Lord a more viable starting hero (with beetle buff) and support hero (with buffed Impale). However, I think the buff to the Beetles was a little extreme… For only 150% of the cost you can now spawn two Beetles instead of one. At first glance this only seems like a 33% buff to the ability (which is already extreme IMO) but it’s actually greater than that because it also:
A) provides 2x the beetle army off of the same number of corpses.

B) spawns 2x the beetle army in the same amount of time (since the ability has the same cooldown as before).

If the mana cost of the Beetle ability was increased to 60 mana (2x the previous single spawn iteration) this would still be a buff for the two reasons mentioned above. If anything at least increase the cost to 50 or 55 as that would make it less viable to autocast while still having mana to spam Impale (and would thus create some incentive to go for carapace).

What are other people’s experience vs or with the one’s whose might cannot be matched!

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First of all UD has had basically zero hero variety in the last 15 years. Even Dreadlord first is more of a cheese which doesn’t work against competent players as shown by 120 when he lost against Human, Elf and Orc with it.

Dk first was needed because UD simply doesn’t work without the aura. UD units have 0 natural health regen off blight and without the dagger no way to heal. Ghouls have terrible stats for their cost and face immense powercreep thanks to recent patches. Everything they face from heroes to most earlygame units received buffs.

The Crypt Lord is the first summon hero for UD and UD never had a summon hero. As with all summon heroes, level 3 is crucual. We see the entire HU vs Orc matchup revolve around Orc trying to deny Water Elementals level 2 from the AM while teching to Shaman. If AM is able to reach level 3 and manage to deny the Spirit Lodge, Human gets a massive advantage.

Of course Crypt Lord works in a similar way. His level 3 is also powerful. But since he is a low intelligence hero, constanly summoning Beetles leaves him with no options to use impale until he gets statues of buys mana potions. That is his weakness. He isn’t really playable against Elf due to early dispel. Human and Orc both have options to deal with summons and of course players need some time to adapt, but already found ways. Orc can simply hide peons inside burrows and Human has access to towers and magic sentry which denies burrow.

Beetle harass can be easily compared to Keeper Harass with Treants. The answer is both the same.

Orcs have already shown a completely new way to counter Crypt Lord with Farseer + Headhunter strat. See here:

Humans have also shown that AM is able to deal with Crypt Lord. But even more exciting is Bloodmage vs Crypt Lord! Bloodmage was already played against UD in the past, but not very often. It is certainly a viable strat when paired up with Mountain King and Paladin.

A very successful game with Bloodmage against Crypt Lord here:

Talk about competitive:

So far we have mostly seen europeans play with him. But from the best UD players, we have only see one single Crypt Lord game from 120 and his opponent Focus (Orc) was very well prepared. We have still not seen how the best players play with and against him after they had more time to prepare. It will be very exciting to see how players refine strategies with and against him. Since we have already seen 2 successful strategies against him, he is not unbeatable at all. And not comparable to old Keeper of the Grove who was able to entangle and kill anything that moves on the map with level 3.

For now he is new and fresh and very exciting. But in the Asian scene Deathknight first is still played most of the time. Crypt Lord is in no way comparable to what Keeper and Alchemist used to be when Matt Morris made Nightelf the most broken and overpowered race in the entire game. So far he seems like the might compete with DK for first hero choice. And that doesn’t mean he is overpowered, that means mission accomplished in terms of giving UD more hero variety!

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Sorry but half of your point it irrelevant to balance not nerfing an overpowered hero because “hero variety” is stupid. It is either OP or its not. I say its OP and i play undead i think by picking any other starting hero vs orc or human i am nerfing myself. I played a game yesterday where i lost my entire army to a human and soloed his 3 heroes and leftover units in his base with nothing but my CL and beetles. I can make massive mistakes and micro poorly and win games with him when i could never before. Happy gets wrecked by tier 3 players using CL. The beetles unlike water elemental never go away and that’s the only hero level 3 thatds like cl but W/e is MUCH less mana efficient per hp summoned its not even close. They get burrow without an upgrade they never die on their own via timer they are too tanky at lvl 3 for dispel too strong for earl gam all ins when combine with rod and strong enough at 3 for undead to not need aura hero nuke or anything to hold off other races while safley fast teching. im watching noobs use CL to wreck higher skilled players so i don’t know what you have been watching but to me it seems like you are pretty biased when you say things like “you cant nerf until we see just how it pans out” and “but my variance” no its doesnt take rocket science anyone playing the game knows that they are overtuned. The worst part is its a low skill hero 1 i have gained over 500 MMR with undead since this chnage using him and its not because i have miraculously got better at a game I have been playing 15 years its because he is broken.

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I applaud this man’s honesty for admitting a hero he regularly uses is OP. Class act for sure.

I’m normally a Human player and I was like welp cant beat them then join them. Im currently 5-1 with UD/CL with a race that I haven’t used in 5+ years. I don’t know MU timings, and I don’t know build orders… I just go CL fast shop and graveyard to get fast summons and creep the orange camp. Then mid game go fiends desto and I’ve been wrecking people. Or making mistakes and still squeaking out the W.

At first, I didn’t want to share my personal experience out of fear that I may someone would say Im exaggerating but seeing other people with similar experiences helps our credibility.

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This means you dont have the skill or capacity of higher levels of understanding. Cl is not op he is just good against bad players, I only go CL in 4v4 but I always stick to dk lich in 1v1 because hero nuking is just much better at everything the cl could do.

Since dawn of time time it has been dk first and now for the first time ppl can try going cl and the first thing ppl do is complain because they dont know how to counter a hero that plays differently at the start of the match.

Same crap different day.

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Rofl yea if you make a micro mistake you can no longer understand how the game works hope you don’t misclick bro. No sorry I’m watching scrubs own happy with CL and watching unknown high tier players out of nowhere win but only with CL. I see players like x lord sell his tp AND unsummon his alter because He is that confident his CL will never die. I have no problem countering him I just pick him myself boom done no better counter. Hero simple needs a beetles nerf or base HP/armor nerf. new impale is fine. rework on worthless talent + beetle and HP nerf would be ideal.

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Thats not what I was saying. If you dont have reading comprehension then im not gonna bother to explain that to you.

Did beetles hp get buffed? Did they gain magic resistance? Did they get damage buff? Did they get more abilities? Did they get a movement speed buff? Did anything get changed about the beetle in of itself? The answer is no.

All it is is one extra beetle on the field. You are all complaining about one extra beetle on the field.

Did Cl get a hp buff? Did Cl get armor buff? Did cl get movement speed buff? Did cl get magic resistance buff? DId Cl get damage buff? Did anything other than reworking 2 spells for quality of life changes happen? The answer again is no.

You are just complaining for the sake of complaining. The fact is the hero didnt have any significant change, impale gets countered by going mass air like it always did, and beetles still get countered by dispel and aoe damage much like ghouls. Know what I do when I see a CL first in mirror? I ignored him and continue how I normally play against UD and Win still.

Yes your going to see videos of pros trying it out and winning because its the new hot thing. But guess what I have also seen videos of CL first failing in the hands of pros. Btw selling the Tp is not about confidence it wont die its about having gold to fast expand, its the same thing ppl do when going DL fast expo. This goes back to me saying you dont have the high level of understanding.

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Sounds like you are bias even if pros win way more than they should its not op because its “new” seems pretty bias to me. I have played this game since the day RoC came out I think I understand when something is OP the only thing they changed is 2 beetles a corpse they doubled their early game power lol. Its not rocket science you can try and spin it any way you want but CL is OP and is obvious to anyone who plays the game.

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5 beetles going to 6 is double? Tell me again about how great your math skills are. For someone who claims they played since ROC you surely are failing to prove your point. I on the other have played since ROC and have my waybackmachine url to prove which account I used but what does saying you played from ROC do for you? Does it show or prove you have more skill or knowledge? No, it only shows your lack of it for not acknowledging one month is not enough time to demand nerfs to a Hero who was pretty much nonexistant for 20 years.

I am not being bias I just dont jump on the bandwagon like a sheep, example ppl are complaining TC stomp nerf is not good enough I instead say wait for more data. People like you who just blatantly open their mouth to cry for nerfs do not give it a fair try first.

But hey go ahead respond again with more nonsense I’ll be sure to ignore it.

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Bro i have gave it it a fair try i play this game for hours every day if you think its 6 vs 5 and your not being hyperbolic I’m sure your fine with it summoning 1 beetle a corpse and max of 6? no? See the thing is the mana cost and number of summons per corpse is actually a really important factor. You dont give something obviously OP its “fair time” . They are finally balance patching this game lets ask them to to please rework his worthless passive and tune down the now OP 2 beetles per summon with either more mana cost higher CD something as it currently stands he is overtuned. Honestly maybe the beetles are OK and CL himself needs to have his base tankiness tuned down but as it stands hes just too good.

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The Beetle cap going from 5 to 6 is not the problem… the problem is the fact that the CL can rebuild his summon army very quickly and at very little mana cost. A quick HP to mana cost comparison of summons:

1x Water Elemental lvl 1 has 575 HP and costs 125 mana. Thats a 4.6x HP to mana ratio.

2x Treants at lvl 1 have a combined 600 HP and costs 125 mana. Thats a 4.8x HP to mana ratio.

2x Beetles at lvl 1 have a combined 280 HP and cost 45 mana. Thats a 6.2x HP to mana ratio.

Obviously this isnt a deep dive into all of the stats (i.e. attack speed, attqck damage etc) but HP and mana cost are two of the most important. On that same front you could argue that Beetles require corpses while the other summons can be casted at any time. But this is easily counterbalanced by the fact that Beetles don’t have a life timer. Let alone its very easy to obtain access to corpses at any stages of the game such as killing critters, early graveyard, creeping, etc…

If we simply raise the mana cost to 50 or 55 that would bring Beetles back in line with the other summons HP to mana cost ratios.

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Since you responded fairly I will do so as well.

I never mentioned the passive because Im one of the few dont care either way if it gets reworked or not. I am fine with it that way it is. Now others may think its trash and want a rework, sure go for it because it wont make a difference to me.

So if you want to talk about the mana cost of summoning beetles, what cost would you think is fair for 6 beetles total? Do you want the cost to be revert back to 30 per single beetle? Remember this was the cost at 5 beetle maximum and no one would use CL aside from trolling tactics before the change. I think everyone here needs to first take this into consideration as to why CL was never used before? Lastly you now want his tankiness to go down, what about the TC? His effectiveness in battle and tankiness rivals that of the CL.

I honestly dont understand the people who demand nerfs/buffs to things without clearly thinking about why things are they way they are. I just want these changes to be given their fair amount of time used for data gathering before the mob comes with their own personal list of demands.

As I have played this game since its debut in ROC, at first I was demanding nerfs to everything and buffs to my race, but as the years went by I realize why certain races have certain “op” things they have access to. Undead is the race that was suposed use corpses as a third “resource” but it never got fleshed out and I believe this CL change was a good step towards that direction. People just need to learn to counter this hero that they overlooked and ignored because they never had to fight against it before. Did you guys even realize when CL first came out in Frozen throne he was also everywhere but everyone eventually realize he was trash compared to dk lich so he again disappeared. What Im getting at is this new Cl might just go the same way, which is what I alluded to in my earlier post when I mentioned I still go Dk Lich in solo.

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Water elementals have no requirement at all and treants require trees which at plentiful around every map, and even can be used to create shortcuts to enemy bases or to evade enemy while retreating.

You mention hp to mana ratio why didnt you mention the damage these summons have, or that one of these also acts as anti air and is ranged. If you want to argue in this matter you cant leave out these aspects because you are ignoring the purpose each of these summons serve as well as their strengths/weaknesses.

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Exactly. Crypt Lord summons are melee which means they will not deal nearly as much damage as a Water Elemental. They are also slower than wolves so they can’t chase and you cannot micro them back and deny exp. Denying exp on your own summons is crucual on highest level. Since UD never played with summons, the only xp from summons were Skeletons. However with CL now thats changed.
Suddenly the UD opponent gets a lot more exp and has higher level heroes. Summons are a double-edged sword, but for some reasons the whiner in this thread seem to ignore this.

We just saw Happy vs Grubby Best of 5. Of course Happy didn’t use the Crypt Lord once, not even as third hero. Grubby already had the counter build just by going Headhunters + FS and he would have contained Crypt Lord in his base with mass ranged units. There is no way to have mapcontrol with Crypt Lord + Fiends against FS + HH. Orc will snipe your beetles and damage your Fiends, which you cannot heal since you have no DK. Regen from dagger is clunky and gets canceled, so your unit is pinned down in your own base. Also you do not have unholy aura and UD is impossible to play without it because the units have 0 regen and lower stats. FS and wolves would simply kill fiends out on the map because they can chase all the way to your own base.

Stop your whining and pay good attention to the upcoming WGL tournament. So far we only saw him used a single time from 120. We will find out how well the Crypt Lord does now that everyone has had more experience playing with and against him. UD is already the least represented in peak competitive gameplay, as you can see by clicking the link below. They only have Happy, 120 and then a giant skill gap between the next best UD.

All the information about WGL is here thanks to Jannes from B2W:

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Happy plays the same crap every game hes a robot and not exactly a cutting edge player, hes a micro monkey. 30 per beetle doesn’t sound so bad. Also if you look at the damage per mana used its not as bad as you seem to think. Yes I’m pretty sure impale change combine with the + 2 beetles per summon and new max is enough to change his effectiveness even without a mana reduction. You can literally spawn them twice as fast before the spell wasn’t even worth casting at lvl 1 the 2 per summon was his biggest buff he got. The mana reduction was over the top. This is not an int hero with mana aura like the AM i shouldn’t be able to leave beetles on auto cast all game and have mana for impale on my tanky str hero. When I say reduce his tankiness that’s because i realize sometimes to balance something you can come at it from a different angle and in my experience the CL may as well be a mountain giant targeting him is worthless and that feels wrong . Now maybe my bias vs tc comes from playing undead about 50% of my games when im not on random and being able to coil him but in my experience its easier to kill a TC , maybe that’s impale/ coil/nova combo maybe that is the nature of TCs positioning for stomp maybe its the nature of coil healing vs healing wave but i can tell you in my experience it is way harder to kill a CL its not even worth targeting where as TC is what i target first. Im glad they buffed the CL and im glad hes more usable in 1v1 now but i think they took it too far and the more i think about it the more i think 60 mana cost for his summon is the most obvious answer. It makes reworking his passive even more exciting since choosing not to get beetles for a mana free spell is a legit choice again since you save more mana for impale now.

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Careful my friend, whenever someone says something about how strong is UD at something. The UD patrol will jump to ur neck.
I love that argument about the reading comprehension, he always has a spot to use it. And if you tell him an uncomfortable truth he will simply flag ur post.

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Crypt Lord has the highest winrate in w3champions out of any heroes.
By a noticeable chunk.

Undead is the best performing race in w3champions from masters and above currently. And don’t get me started with asia scene. Not my fault the best undead player, Happy, does not bother playing in tournaments and 120 plays troll strats with dreadlord or firelord: ironically, the games 120 plays standard he almost always win (kudos to him for trying new strats though). Anyways, that’s like Lyn or Moon or Infi not playing in major tournaments. It’s so hard to grasp how good UD is in tier 1 scene (top 6 players) cause 1 doesn’t play and the other doesn’t play serious while others do.

In the tier 2 scene at least, we clearly see in Europe/America which race is the best race in game: undead. Every american/european tournament ends with a UD vs UD or UD vs NE with UD winning.
So while we aren’t sure how broken the game balances are in tier 1 scene, at anything below top 6 players in the world, UD is just the best race in game to win with.

Crypt Lord everywhere too. Especially vs HU. It is so unfun to watch.
Just go to w3champions site and go by hero winrates. Crypt Lord has the highest winrate in game with almost 60% winrate.

Honestly, watching Crypt Lord in european tournaments this patch vs HU players is far more mind dulling than watching Keeper in 1.30. There’s no difference.
Then the necrowagon that follows after cause 1 frost tower guarantees an undead expansion. Also mind dumbing.

Oh well, guess there’s 6 undying footmen that give next to no experience points on top of all this at all times while having an AOE that does DOUBLE the range of breath of fire and has NO unit cap and does MORE DAMAGE than breath of fire and has STUN on ALL units and has a hero that is super tanky and hits like a tank.
Crypt Lord is basically a mountain giant in this game with unlimited spells: best summon in game and best aoe in game. How does that work? Summon heroes in this game are mostly all int and are fragile or don’t have a good second spell. But Crypt Lord? He really is a lord.

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Crypt lord is perfect as he is now. We shouldn’t have to go DK every game first or lame with DL

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I wonder if Beetles should have a timer like all of the other summons.

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Crypt Lord has one impale earlygame until t2 and then you have to dump mana pots into him. Every summon hero in the game has high intelligence which allows high mana pool and high mana regeneration.

The Crypt lord has neither, which you ignore. Elf can easily full up mana with Moonwells and Clarity potions, also Moonwells were buffed by an insane 20% mana regen. Orc has clarity potion aswell and Human has brilliance aura on top.

No summon hero needs constant support with mana items, thats the big weakness. Also being a melee hero of course, its easy to harass him in the earlygame while staying out of impale range if player properly. We see this in the earlygame and so far every pro game has brought us very intense earlygames which is great! As players spend more and more time, they will get better and better at dealing with him. Already players have figured out proper counter playstyles like Farseer + Headhunter play.

I encourage you to work on your game, try to innovate a bit yourself and have fun doing so. We are all happy that after 15+ years, UD is no longer playing DK first every game. It makes for a much better game overall.

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