This…is going to be one of the weirdest things I’ve ever posted about, partly because…well, I don’t actually have that strong of feelings about it, myself. I haven’t thought about it in years, honestly. But when I look at the units in WC3 and their costs and the way the community reacted (or, more accurately, the way the community didn’t react) to the Chimaera…well, I take it as an indication that something was very, very wrong with the way that unit was designed.
For context for those of you who didn’t play WC3 in the early 2000s: each faction had one high-end building that was intended to produce a unique unit. And at first, this building could only produce just that one unit (though the Frozen Throne expansion sometimes changed that). For humans, this one-unit building was the Gryphon Aviary; for the undead, it was the Boneyard, where powerful Frost Wyrms could be created. For the night elves, this only-produce-one-unit building was the Chimaera Roost, and the Chimaeras that came out of it were impressive-looking two-headed dragons. One head spat out acid that did extra damage to buildings, while the other head (if I’m remembering this right) spat out blasts of magic to target non-building units.
Take this into account, and the Chimaera should’ve been an amazing unit that was as iconic to the Night Elf identity as Gryphons were to the Alliance or Frost Wyrms were to the Scourge. Except…they weren’t. Back in the early 2000s, I never heard people talking much about using Chimaeras. When WoW came out, no one thought about Chimaeras much—they were actually treated as if they were more from Outland than from Kalimdor, as if the developers out-and-out forgot about the Chimaera!
I’m guessing this means that, despite how deep Chimaeras were in the night elf tech tree and how much they cost, they were badly-designed units, when they really should’ve been awesome—I mean, they were siege units that could fly!
I don’t know what the issue was with the Chimaera that made them so unpopular—whether they didn’t hit hard enough, whether their inability to attack other air units got in the way of their usefulness, or whether they simply weren’t as cost-effective as other night elf units. But whatever the issue is, I’m hoping Blizzard fixes it, because honestly, a unit that is supposed to be to night elves what Frost Wyrms were to the undead ought to be effective and iconic, rather than neglected and forgotten like the Chimaera was during Warcraft 3’s original run!