PTR Version 1.36.1 Notes -- Updated November 9

  • Moonwell mana regeneration reduced from 1.5 to 1.35

Can ANYONE explain the reasoning behind this? what issue is this currently addressing in the game? Maybe you guys should take some advice from the D4 balance team. Nerfing and nerfing with no give back is a bad way to do things. If your going to do something like this that effects ALL MUs then you must give something in return to offset it. If not your just breaking the game farther. 4

5 Likes

Yes, it’s hard to explain.

Balanced moonwell mana regeneration should be 1.25, not 1.35.
Same with militia. It should be 45 seconds not 42.5.

14 Likes

So the matchup of NE vs UD has the highest imbalance in game. And noticeably so.
We will ignore that and nerf NE more. And not just nerf NE here but nerf NE in all aspects of the game and for all racial matchups through:

Revert this. And please address the issue with frenzy ghoul being too powerful, gargoyles with an expansion having 0 counters in a RTS game, nerubian tower 4 minutes into the game at Elf base which is 5 fortified armor with ridiculous repair, and NE having no real answer to UD fast expand at tier 1 and 2.
Then there’s the issue with how poorly banshees are designed since they remove late game capabilities of micro fights due to possess and antimagic.

Is this the last PTR and the last patch? Are we purging Elf from pro scene before this patch?

I want a refund if this gets released. If you are going to nerf a race that is already struggling in a matchup even more, then the players in that race have full rights to demand a refund.

Why is Grubby who is long gone from the pro scene and is busy playing Dota 2 having more impact than all the competitive pros in 1v1? Top pros from Asia also voiced out the NE vs UD issue.

3 Likes

If that’s your concern, don’t think that will happen. If NE gets weakened in all matchups, their overall MMR drops, which means the ‘expected win rate’ will drop and thus be closer to the ‘actual win rate’. So I expect the deviation % will actually be lower. Perhaps it will rise in NE vs HU and NE vs Orc instead.

1 Like

Lovely to know that. It’s already great enough a lot of Night Elf players when offracing UD has better results with UD vs NE than a lot of UD players who offrace NE to play UD vs NE.
(when both are similar MMR)

Of course the argument UD will always back up is with “but Happy is good with all races”. Still doesn’t change any part of the imbalance of the matchup that is apparent throughout the MMR.

2 Likes

Bummer. I thought maybe you were actually changing some things.

FPS in Build 20674 was broken (again), observer mod also!

And pls, give Dred Lord something!

2 Likes

A list of small changes to consider for the final version of the patch. Thank you!

– Have Ring of Protection +3 be at level 2 instead of Ring of Protection +4.

– Crystal ball. Make it 3 chargers, each costing 50 gold.

– Decrease Volcano mana cost from 200 to 150 and cooldown from 180 to 150 seconds.

– Reduce Naga’s Mana Shield activation cost from 25 to 10 mana. The ability itself is very mana consuming.

– Change clockwerk goblins spawn interval time from 5/4.5/3.5/3 to 5/4.2/3.5/3 seconds. Changes # of spawned goblins from 7/8/11/13 to 7/9/11/13 per Engineering level.

– Change Archmage’s Strenth/Agility/Intelligence bonus from 1.8/1/3.2 to 2/1/3 per level.
Every hero gains on average 6 stats per level.

– Increase Mountain Bash bonus damage from 25 to 25/40/55 (instead make it 25/35/50).
This is a much nicer progression. Don’t forget that bash has no mana cost.

– Bladestorm damage increased from 110 to 140 damage per second (instead, increase dmg from 110 to 125). In addition to that decrease mana cost from 200 to 175. Blademaster already scales very well into the late game.

– Tauren build time reduced from 44 to 39 seconds (instead make it 42 seconds). As a comparison, knights and abominations have 40 seconds build time.

– Increase Immolation activation cost from 1 to 10 (instead make it 5).

– Warden’s Fan of of Knives unit cap increased from 4/5/5 to 5/6/7 (instead make it 5/6/6, +1 max cap on every level).

– Decrease duration of Priestess of the Moon’s Starfall from 45 to 30 seconds. Increase Starfall’s dmg per wave from 50 to 60 or decrease wave interval from 1.5 to 1.25.

– Reduce Death and Decay mana cost from 250 to 200, duration from 35 to 30 sec. This is in order to make all channeling ultimates last 30 seconds and cost max 200 mana.

– Increase Crypt Lord’s Spiked Carapace from 3/5/7 to 4/8/12 (instead make it 3/6/9).

– Crypt Fiend turn rate increased from 0.5 to 0.6. (please don’t implement it).
It isn’t good idea to keep buffing basic units, this way they become uniform across all races, that is, all T1 ranged units now will have the same turn rate, feel same, etc. At some point buffing has to stop - everything gets faster, with more damage, less cost …

1 Like

how exactly was this done? only one campaign map file was touched this update. why not just do what we know fixes the 1.33 campaign pushes and disable weather effects (or fix them so they stop crashing) and leave the rest of it alone?

2 Likes

Thanks for nerf of moonwell. It has been overly strong for years. In the meantime, please stop to buff Warden. It has been a stronger hero without buff. This patch doesn’t need to address NVU. Elves has a slightly lower winning rate only because the UDers are better players. These NE with 2200 MMR should only be 2100, these with 2000 MMR should only be 1900. Their unfair advantages against Human and Orc make their MMR untruly higher than they should have been, and hence they always face stronger player who use UD. By nerfing elf, their MMR will be lower to a more appropriate level and hence they will face undead player with the same level in the future.

14 Likes

FINALLY moonwell regen nerf. I’ve been waiting for this for years. Personally I’d nerf it a bit more but it’s still a long awaited change. Well done!

14 Likes

why would you revert the abomination collision buff?

its one of the worst units in the game, and it gets stuck so much that you may as well consider it a bug fix.

4 Likes

Elves dominates Human even worse in all MMR range. So nerf elves.

6 Likes

A few UD pro-players gave feedback that abomination losses its efficiency in being a blocking fat unit which helps spreading fast disease cloud. Some pro-players think that reducing collision size makes the unit weaker.

4 Likes

This is a sound argument. However, the Abomination almost never gets to attack because of its collision size. With the reduced collision size Aboms were able to attack targets when you have 2 or more, for the first time ever.

You never see Aboms used without disease Cloud. Because it does nothing other than being a damage sponge without it. Thats not good design. Why give it an attack in the first place if it cannot attack?

If you factor in how Aboms work in reality, then you need to factor in that they almost never attack. So, to make up for this, increase their attack damage. Units must be useful even without signature upgrades. See Raiders, which are fast, deal high damage to casters and buildings. And yes even though they are mainly used for ensnare, they are useful when ensnare is on cooldown.

So, the conclusion is Aboms need a small additional buff if the collision size is reverted. Increase attack by 5-10% would be enough.

Finally moon well is being addressed. It is the single most broken unit in the game allowing Night Elf players to abuse hero AoEs like nobody else.

8 Likes

I just love how nobody cares about actual competitive balance in the game.

And I love even more really nothing from NE vs UD is being addressed this patch. In fact, the moonwell nerf is going to create the imbalance even further.

How many times did I repeatedly post the imbalance % at the top scene in w3champions.

7.3% difference in NE vs UD makes the matchup the biggest glaring issue in the game. And yet it doesn’t matter.

Gargoyles are still not addressed. Ghouls are still not addressed. UD expansion balance issue vs NE is not addressed. Nerubian tower rush is not properly addressed (and in fact, it got even better eod because it’s the slow + 5 fortified armor that is the issue, not the damage. But with moonwell regeneration nerfed, you just overall buffed the bug in the game even further). The repair rate of nerubian tower (with 600 hp 5 fortified) is ridiculous and forces Elf to create a Protector + Glaives which puts the tech tree way too behind in the game (also, glaives are deadweight resource investments). Just for reference, even Orc’s tier 2 fortified upgrade gets you only 3 armor and 500 hp and slower repair rate. The fact a tier 2 upgrade is still less tankier than a tower that can be created 4 min to the game at an opponent’s base is an insanity in logic.

Why is the biggest balance issue being overlooked the entire PTR wave. I don’t get it. How many times do I have to point out the data.

Moon recently on his stream was frustrated himself too.
How come active pros like him have less voice in the balance patches over the general public.

TH000 on his stream recently when casting Moon vs 120 told the stream that the result was to be expected due to ‘influence from western balance patches over the years’.
And let’s be real. That’s unexpected coming from a HU player himself.

Top non-elf pros including Th000, Focus, Soin, Lyn, Sok agree the NE vs UD matchup favors UD.
But are all their opinions worthless in the face of a popular western streamer who does not even play the strategies that is used competitively?

Just who are we balancing this game for. The 1300 MMR players or the 2500+ MMR players? Or 1900 casters? Or 2200 players who mostly play Dota 2 and want to play ‘nostalgia strategies’ from time to time to this game? Let’s start from there.
Because clearly at 2500+ MMR player base, NE vs UD problem is going to get even more exaggerated.
I have more faith in Anima (HU) randomly taking a win against Happy (UD) in w3champions in a map like Autumn Leaves going Mountain King first over Kaho (NE) taking a win against Happy (UD) in the same map in w3champions ladder. And fyi, Anima is 2200 HU while Kaho is 2600 Elf whose random MMR is close to 2400.

There is something seriously wrong with the game balance if this is the case and yet the PTR completely ignores such still.

To Kaivax: Please, please address the NE vs UD issue in the PTR. Please. I even posted the % numbers of >= 2300 player MMR. The difference should be shooting an ‘emergency’ balance patch. Please. I thought the point of PTR balance was to address NE vs HU and NE vs UD. And HU vs Orc being solved by bringing troll headhunters back? No? NE vs UD has the worst balance of the 3 imbalanced matchups but is essentially ignored on the PTR.

As for how ‘unbiased’ Grubby’s thoughts on Night Elf is. This is today’s quote from his stream:

“You can’t ban night elf. That would be nice if you can ban it” -Grubby

Grubby clearly has no thoughts on a fair game. He just wants the race removed (and taking advantage of his popularity to influence the public). So the balance patch ideas he is proposing is to eliminate Night Elf from competitive scene. How can we take his ideas in good faith in the first place? Also, he doesn’t even play the meta vs Elf. He still goes tauren chieftain most of time vs Night Elf which is not the meta currently. And he rarely goes mirror image. Like… he is playing 1.26 in a 1.35 patch and then complaining when something is not going his way.
Imagine going Potm 2nd vs HU and then complaining all day how broken HU is. Like… should that opinion even be taken seriously? The balance patch for the matchup is balanced this patch through Shadowhunter 2nd who goes serpent wards. Not ‘I can go any hero and then voice out my opinion if the game doesn’t listen to me’.

Also on stream, Grubby complained that things which worked from the past don’t work anymore.
Seriously? I mean this is strategy game and new things develop over the patches so if you don’t adapt, then you don’t deserve to win if a matchup is fair at the competitive scene. A good player should be able to adapt. I’ve lost so much respect for him from his recent streams and his influence on the PTR. He has no regards to the pro scene and just wants to win from time to time in the side after he plays Dota 2. I do not believe that’s how WC3 should be balanced. WC3 should be balanced from the top scene down.

I’m already worried about the impact of Spirit Walker buff and Demon Hunter nerf vs Orc. And now I realize there’s a huge slap on the face with moonwell in which it’s currently nowhere near enough to compete vs UD.

4 Likes

According to W3C’s own data at >2200 MMR in version 1.36, UD vs NE is 51% vs 49%. Your entire premise is based on false data.


Select MMR

2200 (~Grandmaster)

Select Patch

1.36.0

||vs Human|vs Orc|vs Undead|vs Night Elf|
|Human|-|49.2%|53.7%|45.9%|
|Orc|50.8%|-|51.8%|46.2%|
|Undead|46.3%|48.2%|-|51.2%|
|Night Elf|54.1%|53.8%|48.8%|-|


Since you are citing W3C, I pasted it for you based on data from 11/10/2023.


Meanwhile, NE vs Human is currently 8.2% favoring NE. NE vs Orc is 7.6% favoring NE. Moon well is clearly broken. After the moon well change in 1.30, there are consistently 4~6 NE players in top 8 of most tournaments. Every single non-NE player would tell you moon well is broken.

Moon wells effectively make low damage race like human unplayable against NE.

6 Likes

Updated the camera zoom functionality to support more granular zoom values (IE 1933)

This is a great update, thanks for that. One minor nitpick: When you disable the setting the inputboxes should probably be disabled as well. The same goes for in-game where I believe that changing this setting should be disabled entirely as well?