Here are some ideas about possible balance change. The point is not to balance the MUs, but for one of the following reasons:
- item luck
- boring mu/gameplay
- give more counterplays to some strategies
- encourage more variety of strategies
The idea is to put my ideas in the open for discussion. Maybe they are very bad, in which case please explain to me why. But keep in mind that without pro players testing changes is hard to be sure of anything. For example, in the last patch a lot of players said that the increase in the start mana for bears would not have any impact at all. But it has been a great upgrade to defend from human tower push on tier 2. Also, the master bears with 2 starting rejus proved to be a significant buff on late game. Another example is the infamous ¨giro meta¨ predicted by Neo couple of patches ago, which we are still waiting for (if u read this neo, don’t be mad, is just to point out that even the best&smartest pple can make mistakes when theorycrafting)
Full disclosure, I’m a HU player and therefore tend to favor that race… hopefully not a lot xD
Without further ado, here are the ideas:
Brilliance does not affect mechanical units.
The idea of this change is to make khadgars less strong when found by undead. Statues are already great, when an UD finds khadgars (i think) it makes them almost broken. Even with this change it would probably be the best item for UD, that should tell u how strong this item is for UD. I think at the moment it is one of the items that breaks more games, especially on UD mirror, that is why I suggest a little nerf to it.
Druids of the Claw occupy 2 slots on zeppelin.
As an observer I hate on NE mirror when a player can not leave the base because suddenly 6-7 bears drop in his base and he loses it. This produces a lot of camping and dead time on this MU. I know it has a counterplay with hippos, but it can take a lot of time to get it. It seems to me that bear drop affects NE mirror negatively. Maybe this is a change that could help that.
A variation of this is to make Druid of the Claw in bear form occupy 2 slots on seplin. Although I’m not sure that is easy to do (from a practical point of view). With this variation NE still could be able to do their bear drop, but it would give the defending player more reaction time since the attacking player has to transform the bears after the drop. And would make it more difficult to evacuate via zeppelin for the attacking player (he would need to untransform the bears to escape)
Effect in non mirror MUs:
Against HU the power of the drop comes mostly from NE heroes killing peons. Bears are nice to have, but not the main threat for the HU. I don’t think this will affect the MU a lot.
Against UD is a small nerf, but undeads already have a great way of dealing with it (web) anyways, so it would not change that much in my opinion.
Against ORC drops are not used that much.
Edit: ofc, if u change this, u should do the same change for the other tier3 melee units
Make anti magic shell as a summon (i.e. take damage from dispel)
AMS is a very good spell with no counter play. Making it dispellable would be a big nerf and I’m not sure how that would affect the balance of the game. This is an alternative to that option that gives some counter play to it without being too big of a nerf. Maybe it could be paired with an increase in the amount of damage AMS can take, so it would not be a nerf at all.
Effect in non mirror MUs:
Against NE and HU allows the other player to have some counter AMS. If this affects the MU a lot, as mentioned, this change could be paired with an increase in the amount of damage AMS can take, so it would not be a nerf at all. But to discuss that I think this change should be tested first.
Against orc AMS is almost never used.
Spell breakers damage tipe switched to piercing.
The idea is to make mass breakers weaker in the HU mirror. With this change defend would be more effective in HU mirror (it would work vs breakers) and may allow a players to tech to tier3. This change makes breakers weaker against heroes and range units (like fiends, archers, hhs) though, but I think not much weaker to affect balance a lot. This is a variation of a change suggested some time ago ¨make defend against range, not piercing¨. That has the problem that it may heavily affect the NE vs HU matchup (hunts vs foots).
Make sundering blades a cheap&fast upgrade available on t2 that also affects footman
Same Idea as the previous change, bring more variety to HU mirror by making footman stronger against mass breakers. This is a more delicate change since it may affect the other MU. But I never see players complaining that footman on tier 2 are overpowered, that makes me think that making them stronger on tier2 may not break anything. Not sure though.
Make Magic Steal an ability like ensnare (does not cost mana)
This is probably the wildest of all the changes i’m suggesting. The point is to make breakers stronger with other heroes other than AM 1st. With this maybe HU can play other heroes. At least in some MU (specially in mirror). On HU mirror this could also help players to tech to tier 3 with 1 sanctum, since less breakers would be needed to counter slow from an opponent who stays on tier 2. I don’t think this affects balance a lot in the pro scene, how often do we see that a HU loses a match because the breakers don’t have enough mana? Effect in non mirror MUs:
Against ORC steal is almost never used.
Against UD is only used against curse, and rarely I see that breakers don’t have enough mana.
Against NE has the biggest impact, on tier 2 tower pushes HU would only need 1-2 breakers to steal all the reju they want. Also for roar. Maybe this change could be paired with an increased cooldown (up to 7-9 seconds maybe?), to balance it a little.
Make a map with only undead creeps
This is not for a patch, but rather an idea for the map makers. The point is to make pala first stronger for HU. They could play it a little more like UD plays a DK. For a change HU would have a hero that may be used to harass opponents creeping on early. Is not possible to tell exactly how it would affect be the balance, since it would depend on the other characteristics of the map. Clearly, if there is not an UD nor a HU, this would not have an impact. For UD this would be negative for DK first. But CL first is viable vs ORC and HU, so this is not a sufficient condition to say it makes a map ¨a must ban for UD". Against NE it may though. For HU this would be a buff for pala 1st, that is the point. But at the moment that is not a dominant strategy on any MU. Thus, if the map is well designed, I dont think I would make a map ¨a must ban against HU¨. This is probably the worst of all ideas, but I wanted to share it anyways xD