First of all, on the current 4v4 ladder, sanctuary LV is my favorite map by far.
And overall from the maps we had on 4v4 over the years, I would probably only rate Full scale assault & Sanctuary original higher.
That’s mostly because it is a big map with a lot of creeps, and therefor has the best chance of delivering what i would call a gg in 4v4.
How-ever, any of those maps are far from the ideal map, the ideal map would be a lot bigger. huge maps in 4v4 could work, its just a different style. sadly this was never offered in the map pool.
That being said, sanctuary LV has problems of its own but also at least 1 obvious problem shared with sanctuary original.
Let’s talk about the obvious thing first, the thing they failed to consider while ‘balancing’. Its the ogre magi at 12 and 6 o clock. which can drop an infernal stone~
Its too weak and easily sniped for it to drop such an item, a single player with a merc can do it, 2 blademasters can do it, 2 of any hero really.
And that results in games with infernal stone in human base at 3minute mark.
I’m not against infernal stone as a drop but I am against it dropping from a weak unit like the ogre magi(which is even on the way to your opponents base). You can scout / predict this happening but on 4v4 ladder, well, this creates far more crappy games than good ones. The ogre magi should be changed into a lvl 9 granite golem.
The things they did change:
. Replaced 2 merc camps with goblin laboratories.
This map never ‘needed’ a goblin lab as in there was no need for a zeppelin because of the terrain, like in some maps is the case. Also just because its wc3 does not mean there has to be a goblin lab. The addition of gob lab does not balance anything as far as i can see since both teams have the same opportunity. So why did they do this, to balance or to rehash? In any case, i could live with this if it wasn’t 2 labs literally 5 seconds away from each other.
. Made corner red spots easier
which allows nightelf to cc level 3 + aura item (goldmine ->redcamp) with the same aow quickly, with minimal repair costs. Again it seems questionable what this is ‘balancing’
. made outside expansion (orange camp) harder
borderline red camp if you ask me, good luck taking that one early-game since it has a level 8 dark wizard and stuff, because of that it also has a huge aggro range so aow creeping is out of the question. This is an expansion you could take late-game but basically only if you are pushing your enemy, because otherwise its right in front of your base if you are waiting for them to attack. All in all I dont see the reason for restricting this goldmine from being used early/midgame. Especially since there already is a red-camp nearby this creep camp which already serves the purpose of late game expansion while pushing…
. Removed middle gold mines (this is where the merc camps went)
I really doubt these merc camps have any use since its crept exlusively late-game and nobody needs a 4food priest at that point. This map has a lot of goldmines already but it still offers way more tactical value being a goldmine.
The ideal and obvious solution would be to have 1 gob lab and 1 merc camp on either side , and the goldmines to remain the middle.
. 2 Taverns , red spot in middle.
besides the fact that 2 taverns (close together) is just wasting space of the map, I don’t mind this change all that much.
Some small stuff i probably forgot was other tweaks made to the creep camps, I can’t be arsed to go investigate right now, this is what i remember from the top of my head
All in all pretty incompetent changes but actually quite mild compared to something like battleground LV, which got its entire guts ripped out.