Nerfing rifles is crazy. They are also used against Orc and Undead, and Human already struggles in these matchups. And since Night Elves mostly play warden or keeper into mass archers rifle pushes won’t even happen that often.
Stomp isn’t nerfed enough. It’s a key spell that makes Orc favorite against Human and Undead, and yet it’s nerfed same way as clap, that is used only against Orc. Stun duration should be nerfed as well.
Warden harassing peasants with anti-magic potion is laming that has no counter. It doesn’t need skill. Elf spends 100 gold to buy the potion and kills eco without any risks. Human has to spend 240 gold on zeppelins for each expo and heal peasants somehow between attacks. Anti-magic potion shouldn’t protect from mana burning spells. Warden is already a super-strong hero that can kill a whole army alone starting with level 5. It needs to be nerfed.
Human vs Undead is the most broken matchup for a couple of years, and it gets even worse. 10hp nerf to skeletons is nothing, their damage is way too high. We need to reduce damage and/or number of charges. Fiends and disease cloud are too strong as well. T3 rifles is already a mediocre option where Undead has advantage, and it gets worse with rifles nerf and CL buff.
I don’t get why Blizzard thinks that variativity in play styles should be a privilege only for Undead and Night Elf. What about Human? How about buffing Bloodmage? What about making footmen better, which are by war the worst t1 unit and are not used in mid/late game at all? What about knights, which are still the worst t3 melee unit? What about making 1 base strats available? What about the worst economy protection, which is getting easily abused by all other races?
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Is this ToD’s other account? lol
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My thoughts exactly. Why preach for “no more balancing” and then propose something that will require further balancing 
W8, human struggles against orc and nelf?? 
Well, a way to do both would be if the new unit was added for world editor use only, therefore not affecting melee and ladder.
That’s clearly not what he’s talking about
I like a lot about this patch, I’ve only played a few games but have some initial emotion based feedback to share based on your stated goals of adding more hero variety and tweaking certain matchups.
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The Firelord still feels like it isn’t viable outside of rushes or extremely niche situations, his spells themselves don’t necessarily feel weak but mana management really feels impossible with him being an agility hero, in one game I managed to get a 600 mana pool up and still spent the entire thing with just incinerate across a medium length battle. His ultimate is definitely strong now but at 200 mana with one of the longest cooldowns in the entire game it’s so hard to actually make effective use of it, if you can even get him to level 6.
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The Cryptlord went from a decent situational hero to, in my opinion, one of the strongest heroes in the game. I’m not sure he will be overpowered but it certainly feels like stopping an Undead CL expand is incredibly difficult, and in later games with Impale he just feels so damn strong, I’m not sure if he’s too strong but I hope you’re keeping an eye on him.
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Beastmaster’s new bear definitely makes his early game and creeping feel a lot better, but with the large number of purge happy creeps on the map and the current meta involving every race getting large amounts of fast dispel in every matchup he still feels incredibly weak as the game passes the 6 minute mark, I’m not sure this buff will really help him find a place outside of being slightly better in the few niche situations he was already viable in because the same counters are still just as effective against him.
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I like a lot of the proposed item changes but overall I feel that these changes will only impact new maps that make use of the more drastically changed item tiers, the problematic items on existing maps are still a significant issue and seem to be completely unaddressed. For example the huge variance in getting either +4 agi +4 str or Endurance Aura from the same camp is just absurd, as is getting essentially a free maphack in Sentry Wards compared to healing salve. If you look at the higher level games it definitely feels like item luck in these camps is playing too big a role and seems relatively unaddressed, plus Wand of the Wind is still in the game which even as a night elf player I’ll admit is totally ridiculous. Please consider a broader range of dropped item changes, with primary consideration for either buffing non aura drops or nerfing the % on the auras that do drop.
I’m going to give the matchup balance more time to play out before I comment on them, at an initial glance the changes to rifles and bears doesn’t feel like it will make NEvHU as fair as it should be but that’s my emotional response rather than anything backed up by experience.
There’s a lot more at play to comment on but this is what stood out from my initial play.
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I don’t want to get too excited, but I get 200 ping vs Euro players when originally it was 350-400 ping. I don’t know if it’s only on the PTR, but if we could bring that improvement down here as a permanent basis, it’d be amazing. I wonder if they can make it 100 ping vs US players if they can reduce the ping vs Euro players? I got to double check on the proper server though lol. Could be me getting over-excited again and made it only 200 ping vs Euros on the PTR.
This is great!
I was worried Blizzard would forget about War3 and were just paying lip service. I remember, in the beginning, when they made small, obvious changes because they didn’t want to overdo it. That was great. Then the changes were so positively received that they went too ham, and we got the new necromancers and the Keeper and Alchemist.
This is good. If Carrion Beetles are too strong, you can just slightly increase the mana cost.
My other suggestions for improving UD (in areas that don’t see a lot of use):
If the CL still turns out to be weak in the long run, you can drop the mana cost of Impale to like 90. You can also increase the heal rate a little bit for cannibalize, like an extra hp or two-per-second, and maybe get rid of needing a sacrificial pit to build a boneyard? Then, if that’s too good in the ptr, slightly increase the cost or build time for the boneyard or frost wyrm. It’s too long to get to frost wyrms, and deters people from building them. Last, decrease the cost of sacrificial skulls.
I have ideas for the necromancer, but that’s another story. I have no idea how you buff other spells like polymorph, besides decreasing the mana cost. Maybe make it a debuff, like lower the armor or the target takes additional damage, and if it turns out to be too strong, lower the duration or increase the mana cost?
Anyway, great job, Blizzard! Also love the changes with the map pool and the mercenary camps. Starcraft 2 always rotates maps, and it’s nice to see some steps are being taken to get new maps and freshen up the game even more. We’ve been playing on Echo Isles for like 15 years!
