it’s the only reason we’re getting patches at all
Any ideas for refreshments for the game are worth trying. Thank you for the patch. Really happy to see it.
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Great patch, keep up the good work.
More classic maps however, not w3champions maps.
Please fix the bug mentioned here: 1.36.0.20613 Custom Game Map Downloads Not Working
it’s happening on live servers as well
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Don’t forget tavern heroes <3 <3 <3
Many of them could use buffs and it wouldn’t break the meta
For example Firelord and Naga Ultimate. If you ever get to their Ultimate in 4v4 they are just lackluster.
Thanks for bringing out new patches @Kaivax
2 Likes
Good to know the game is still supported. I would like to address the issues with two matchups using the statistics from W3Champions grandmaster rank in 1.36:
Human vs. Undead
Human has a win-rate of 54.6%. The issue is once Human has 2 bases and tier 3, undead essentially has lost. Human units hard counter everything undead has. The previous patch has made it too easy for Human to reach 2 bases tier 3.
Proposed solution: Either make it harder for human to have early Expo, or buff undead tier 3 units to make them competitive.
Night Elf vs Human:
Night Elf has a win rate of 55.2%. Human units generally are slow with low damage. Once demon hunter gets high armor and HP, Human player can hardly respond.
Proposed Solution: I think the nerf to DH and buff to MK’s passive in the patch note would help. Maybe give priests and sorceresses slightly more magic damage so they can attack druid of claws more efficiently.
On the patch note itself:
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Paladin Aura Buff: No other aura at level 5 has the power equivalent to 9 armors. I think this is absurd given blizzard just nerfed DK and TC’s aura which weren’t even as powerful.
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Hero Movement Speed Change: I am against Blizzard picking heroes for players. Nerfing hero movement speed does not do anything positive other than restricting player’s strategy. Human MK first, or UD Lich first strategies just started recently, and I do not understand why Blizzard wants to kill it.
Well with the restoration of online game saves, we at least don’t have any missing features remaining, but it sounds like people are still having performance issues. PLEASE guys… let’s get this straightend out? We’ll give you cookies.
Funny enough, from a fun perspective, these are two of my favorite heroes, but I absolutely agree. NSW’s ult is good for destroying buildings and that’s about it, and it doesn’t even do a really remarkable job of that. The ice arrows are what make her usable, but you have to win fast with her, if the game drags out she gets worse and worse.
I think forked lightning should gain additional max targets at level 2/3, because most other comprable direct damage spells can hit more targets or do more total damage. And her ult needs to do more to units, particularly considering it’s a channel and it leaves her helpless like POTM while not doing nearly as much.
I’m also kinda struggling to understand why many of the heroes were made slower, while the ones that already had a speed advantage were not affected.
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12 unit cap selection at once , make it 14 units
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This will never happen, no matter how much other stuff they do. It’s baked into how the game plays.
I think they wanted to make it more attractive because people generally get heal and invincibility first and devotion is always the last thing you level up so it often doesn’t come into play.
Without other good changes this game still needs a reconnect feature in the ranked/unranked games. W3Champions did this, why can’t blizzard do this as it was before?
Human:
- Militia duration seems okay, might be back to 44-45 seconds
- Bash bonus damage seems a bit too strong. Would love it to be the same or 25-40-55
- Devotion aura buff seems too big. It might be not that much buffed, like - 2.5/5/8 protection. Anyway the aura is strong, doesn’t even need a buff, as militia buff would help paladin creep fast lvl 3 and be a strong support.
Not a fan of movement speed changes.
Night elf:
- Really good immolation nerfes.
- No need to buff blink, as it’s already a good spell.
- Fan of knives doesn’t need that big buff or any buff at all.
Undead:
- Spiked carapace seems strong, but okayish. Might be a little less buffed like 15/27.5/40
- Armor bonus seems too much to me. There should be 1 buff - either damage return or armor, not both.\
- Raise dead and cripple seem big, there still should be only 1 buff - for Raise dead.
- Skeletal Mastery seems good.
- Nerubian tower slow nerf doesn’t provide much difference, unless there’s 2 seconds cooldown instead of 1.5, as slow duration is longer than 1.5 seconds.
Not a fan of movement speed changes.
Orc:
- Bladestorm dmg buff seems too big, maybe 130 is enough
- So many spirit Walker buffs, need just 1 or all but not big, like - 35 secs, 55 and 70
- Steel armor upgrade is not needed, as it’s already cheap, as it provides armor for all units, not like with other races.
- Other upgrade cost buffs seem ok
Not a fan of movement speed changes
The new item looks too strong and imbalanced. I’d love it to be nerfed by 7% or removed completely from the drop table. For it you can actually use a better icon: the file has this name, but it’d need a renaming: BTNHammer.blp
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W3Champions did not do this. “Waiting for Players” screen is not a “reconnect feature.” it’s a “hey everybody, let’s sit and wait and see if Player X’s internet stabilizes” feature. You can not reconnect if you’ve actually been disconnected/dropped. And even with this feature, most people just press Drop Players as soon as it lets them, so it really isn’t anywhere near the valuable feature people act like it is.
Making it so you can actually rejoin the game if you actually disconnect or your game crashes or whatever is not a simple task, not done by W3C and not likely to ever happen.
Maybe it’s different at pro play, but I don’t see anyone ever take devotion aura before everything else is maxed. It wasn’t “good” until max level before patch, and so there’s no way anyone would choose it over the other skills early on. Now, it’s something worth considering, I think.
Agree, it seems unnecessary and just effecitvely acts as a buff for all the heroes that weren’t touched by it.
I don’t know about this. if it was less than 10% i’d probably just sell it because you could go through a whole fight without it activating and if it doesn’t activate, it’s just taking up inventory space.
//I am crap at this game. but I do understand how units interact and core strategy concepts etc. I just suck at executing them
There’s a big chance on w3c that a player comes back when his internet is back. What do you call this doesn’t matter, it’s still better than nothing on Battle.net ladder.
Devotion aura doesn’t influence much 1v1 games, but there’ll be a lot of whine on 2v2, 4v4. Even in 1v1 it’ll be too much.
If you well and truly disconnect, there is little to no chance it comes back within a few seconds before you get dropped so the other guy(s) get a free win. That’s what happened back in the day and that’s what happens now. It’s barely better than nothing, and it is unfun to sit around waiting for many seconds. A proper reconnect feature would have the game keep going and the player could even resolve an issue and come back, or return if their game is crashed- which for me is far more likely to be the reason I’ll drop from a game than a connection problem.
I want a REAL reconnect feature. “Waiting for Players” is borderline useless and just slows down the game for everyone else. It was disabled on bnet for a reason.
Please reconsider the Rusty Pick Axe.
All of these other changes are ok and reasonable in scale and direction, even if I don’t really agree with the correct target.
… but the Rusty Pick Axe will just add more frustration to the game.
making imba pala more imba
immolation needs damage nerf, not mana nerf
fan of knives good as is
buff CL, no comments but okay
nerub tower nerf is very good
spirit walkers buff, wtf seriously
While it is always nice to see some work still being put into maintaining the game, these suggestions seem to lack any clear direction altogether. Quite a few of them are potentially game-breaking in regards to balancing the game for competitive play.
In addition, several sources of obvious balance issues in the current meta remain unaddressed. The current state of matchups seems largely ignored as changes really do nothing to address the current balance issues that exist. I will first give my feedback on on the suggestions overall, then changes per race and in the end point out some low-hanging fruit that should be addressed in the future.
Overall:
Changes lack a clear sense of direction and a lot of changes don’t work together in tandem. For instance, making Bash stronger seems to imply that one wants MK more attractive as a hero (although he is already one of the most used heroes). However, making him comparatively slower compared to other heroes (Demon Hunter, Keeper, Death Knight) makes him weaker and less suitable as a starting hero.
Several of the changes are targeted towards simplistic and non-enjoyable playstyles (pala+rifle, mass necromancers, higher armour increasing time to kill even further in an already fairly slow-paced game).
Human
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Militia duration increased from 40 to 42.5 seconds.
This increases the general utility of militia in general. I am not sure this change is needed in the current meta. Human fast expansion is already strong, and recently it seems especially difficult for Orc players to deal with. However it will (very slightly) help human in the human vs night elf matchup where human has been struggling for a while. I think this specific matchup and the early game of humans could be addressed in a more focused manner. -
Bash Bonus Damage increased from 25 to 25/50/75.
Mountain King is currently widely used in all matchups and MK as a starting hero is very common at the top level. Bash is also widely used when opening MK first. I don’t see the need for this very big buff for an already good ability. -
Devotion Aura increased from 2/3.5/5 to 3/6/9.
These values are way too high. Devotion aura is already a very good aura and does not need a substantial buff. This would make the fairly boring mono (massing one unit) playstyle of pala + rifle extremely strong, especially below the top level, and it would absolutely break the balance in team-based and FFA-based modes. This change should be reverted or scaled back significantly -
Mountain King movement speed reduced from 290 to 280
Seems like a very unmotivated change. Mountain King has recently seen a lot more play as a first hero, adding more variety for a race that used to start with Archmage first in all situations. This movement speed is a nerf for the Mountain King vs. faster heroes (Death Knight, Demon Hunter) making him less suitable as a starting hero and weaker overall. -
Paladin movement speed reduced from 290 to 280
Same as with Mountain King speed change. Devotion aura is a very big buff, but this change makes him even weaker where he is already struggling: mobility. As such the changes seem counterintuitive when put together.
Night Elf
- Druid of the talon cost increased from 135 to 145.
While not very impactful I don’t see the reasoning for this change. Mass talons are rarely used in Night Elf vs Orc these days. In the other matchup Talons are used the balance is favored for the other race (night elf vs undead). As such this mainly functions as a very small nerf for Night Elf vs Undead, where Night Elf is already struggling. - Immolation activation cost increased from 1 to 5.
While a good change directionally, making activating immolation a slightly more committal choice with a certain trade-off, I think this changes very little in the human vs night elf matchup where Demon Hunter with immolation can be overly oppressive in the early and mid-game. On the other hand, this will be a nerf to demon hunter immolation vs undead where the undead can build a Nerubian tower and use the movement speed of ghouls + slow effect of Nerubian tower to more easily “bait” out activation of the immolation. As already mentioned, this is a matchup where Night Elf is already struggling. Immolation is a spell that is hard to balance and I think the best idea to make it slightly less effective but still useable would be to introduce some form of max damage on the ability, so it won’t damage all units surrounding it equally and as thus allowing for more real counterplay from human by using footmen etc. - Immolation mana activation requirement increased from 9 to 10.
Technical change. - Warden blink cooldown reduced from 10/7/4 to 10/5/2.5.
I think the blink changes are a bit too strong when combined with the Fan of Knives changes. A 2.5 cooldown on level 3 blink is a very short cooldown compared to more or less all other abilities in the game and will make the hero feel too much of a “dota hero”. If one insists on buffing blink the values should be tweaked. - Fan of Knives max total damage 300/625/950 to 480/800/1200.
This change is not correctly implemented atm. The way the game coding works makes it so the ability goes from doing 75/125/190 damage per target on 4/5/5 targets to doing the same damage on 7/7/7 targets. This is too big of a buff, as if all targets are hit it is a 40% or 380 damage increase on level 3.
Undead
- Spiked Carapace melee damage returned increased from 15/25/35 to 15/30/45%.
- Spiked Carapace bonus armor increased from 3/5/7 to 4/8/12.
The spiked carapace changes probably won’t have much effect in most 1v1 games, as impale and beetles still will be preferred given their overall utility. However, in the rare cases you get a (very) high-level Crypt Lord the armour values will now be too high. In general, there seems to be a misconception as to how much armour matters, it is a very impactful value and we don’t want to create unkillable units (devotion aura) or heroes (spiked carapace) in the situations where the heroes become high level enough. - Raise dead cost reduced from 75 to 50 mana.
- Cripple cost reduced from 125 to 100 mana.
- Skeletal Mastery cost reduced from 200/175 to 150/100.
While encouraging necromancer usage is understandable, playing against the mass summoning of “free” units is extremely unpleasant to play against and takes very little effort to execute. Necrowagon strategies are not something the wider community wants to see a lot of and I really hope the raise dead mana cost change does not go through given how horrible of an experience playing against mass necros is in general. - Nerubian Tower cooldown increased from 1 to 1.5.
This change does very little to address the main issues with the Nerubian Tower. The slow effect of the tower still lasts so long that you can juggle the slow effect on several units/heroes at once. In addition, the slow effect itself remains equally strong, so a single Nerubian tower can make a hero more or less unusable in itself. In practical terms, this will mostly be a reduction in damage output for a tower that really did not depend on its damage output to begin with. It might very slightly help with the undead tower rush vs night elf, but for general purpose, this will mostly make it even harder for Undead to hold expansion attempts at humans (that usually tries to cancel with several units) but not change the fact that night elf struggle to challenge undead expo attempts (where cancels are usually performed by a single Demon hunter with maybe one or two archers in support). So it mostly affects the matchup where Undead already was struggling, while keeping the power level the same where they were dominating. - Crypt Lord movement speed reduced from 290 to 280.
- Dread Lord movement speed reduced from 290 to 280.
- Lich movement speed reduced from 290 to 280.
These three changes will make any other starting hero than Death Knight less attractive. I fear for human vs undead balance when Lich counter-expo play will be weaker with a slower Lich and a weaker expansion (Nerubian change).
Orc
- Bladestorm damage increased from 110 damage per second to 160 damage per second.
This seems too big of a change. I don’t think the damage output of Bladestorm is weak as is, but the utility of the spell is limited because of mana cost. A further reduction in mana cost seems more fruitful. - Spirit Walker Build time reduced from 38 seconds to 33 seconds.
- Spirit Walker Adept Training reduced from 60 to 45.
- Spirit Walker Master Training reduced from 75 to 60.
I don’t mind Spirit Walkers getting a slight buff to their usability. I do think doing three buffs at the same time seems overkill though. I would strongly recommend either doing one of the buffs instead of all three together or scaling down the numbers a bit. Walkers are not a bad unit already, so I am not sure they need this big of a buff. - Steel Armor Upgrade Lumber Increment Reduced from 150 to 125.
- Steel Melee Weapon Melee Lumber increment reduced from 100 to 75.
- Steel Ranged Weapons Lumber increment reduced from 100 to 75.
I don’t mind these changes. The armour upgrade might be a bigger buff than intended given the fact that orc armour is universal. - Tauren Chieftain movement speed was reduced from 290 to 280
As with the other movement changes, this will make the Tauren Chieftain slightly weaker compared to heroes that keep their movement speed. Not sure why this would be needed.
Neutral
- Alchemist movement speed reduced from 290 to 280.
- Goblin Tinker movement speed reduced from 290 to 280.
- Naga Sea Switch movement speed reduced from 290 to 280.
- Pandaren Brew Master movement speed reduced from 290 to 280.
Makes the heroes slightly weaker compared to faster heroes. Not sure what motivated these changes.
Items
- Circlet item level reduced from 3 to 2.
Circlet is a now a very strong item for its drop table. Would recommend changing the Circlet to be a random variation of 2/1/1, 1/2/1, 1/1/2 instead of 2/2/2. - Tome of Retraining now has a stock of 2 charges in the shop.
Sure, why not? - Rusty Mining Pick (Grants +1 damage and a 15% chance to Bash) added as a level 3 item.
This would be a completely busted item in the early game. Giving Bash chances to heroes in the early game, especially ranged heroes is extremely oppressive. It would be game-breaking. In addition, it stacks with orbs and other items, so you can in theory have 3 heroes with orbs and bash. This needs to be removed immediately.
Things that are missing:
There are several obvious issues regarding the current game balance that remain unaddressed with this PTR.
Arcane Tower Mana drain is currently super strong, but the tower is very weak while upgrading. Reducing mana drain slightly and reducing build time slightly would help the human vs night elf matchup specifically.
Knights are very strong vs fiends when they deploy with sundering blades. Making it a researchable upgrade or just lover the values further would help tone down their power spike slightly.
Immolation remains situationally very strong vs human. A bigger redesign would be better than trying to tweak values in eternity.
Fairie dragons are extremely potent vs human casters. Making mana flare slightly less punishing against human casters would help realign night elf vs human balance where later fights are extremely difficult for the human player.
Headhunters the HP nerf has made them very weak to the point they are almost completely out of the meta. Giving HP back would be in order so orc has more harassment potential in the early game, especially against human fast expo play.
Frost attack and Nova slow remain too powerful. Nerubian tower can on its own completely shut down a hero and several units, Nova makes chasing/running away extremely difficult given the amount of slow and how long it lasts. Toning down the slow effects (both movement speed and attack speed) would be in order.
Ghoul frenzy ghouls completely dominate the meta and a slight toning down of the frenzy upgrade (for instance 35% - > 28%) would tone them down a tiny bit and especially help with the undead vs night elf matchup where undead are clearly favoured at the top level.
Banshees could use a slight rework. AMS is now either completely busted or useless (depending on access to dispel). I would suggest reverting it to how it used to work but reducing the amount of magic damage it absorbs.
Items, especially rings ring +3 and ring +4 should move up a spot in the drop table. Getting access to +7 armour in the early game is too powerful for certain heroes at the moment.
The Demon Hunter’s nerf falls short of what’s needed. Don’t forget that the change in circlet will make DH an even stronger hero. I recommend reverting the activation cost to 20 and adjusting the DPS back to 10/15/20. The current Demon Hunter is excessively powerful. Also, it’s worth noting that the Warden is already a formidable hero, and there’s no need to enhance her further. The overall power of the Elven units should be nerfed.
Additionally, consider finding a way to buff the Blademaster.
will quick cast be officially be implemented? so far it only works on Grid options with some editing in preferences