Thoughts on Balance

General Discussion
1

Hi there, NE player here. Been playing for around a decade. Seems like most of the game developers out there today are only working for money with microtransactions n p2w models and all… But wc3’s always been the best because its a great game without that crap. Hopefully that means the developers actually care, so let’s give this a shot.

Everybody’s biased when it comes to their own race, but the fact of the matter is, wc3 has survived this long. To me, that means it was fairly balanced, not perfect, can be improved, but close. I found the recent large balance changes very discouraging. I don’t think wc3 needed changes of that scale. I hope we can go back to 1.26 and make smaller changes from there.

Strictly talking about 1v1 matchups, I like how the balance changes encourage new ideas, or metas. The issue for me would be that every race had their strat, their specialty. Hu fast expo/tier 2 tower rush, NE bear dryad with insane hero ultimates (or dotts vs orc), Orc staying t2, play revolving around blademaster, and UD fast tech t3 1 base trihero rightclick with corruption orb. Obviously each race had more than that, 2 crypt mass ghouls, t1 tower rushes, archer talon strats, etc etc. NE and HU would be the races that creep early while Orc and UD would harass. But every race had their meta/identity for over a decade and seeing that disappear with all the kotg mass hunts is pretty lame. It’s much harder for NE and HU to creep now with militia and AOW nerfs. I definitely don’t feel good when everything I knew about this game has to be thrown out. So I hope whatever balance changes are implemented, that they are smaller changes that do not override the identity of each race.

About NE itself, here’s my very own biased opinion. I am an NE player and have played the newest balance patch many times. It’s really sad… Our standard lategame army has been completely nerfed, dh panda bears dryads, talons… Our early game has been buffed, but there’s a real lack of variety there. I personally can only kotg mass hunts a few times before getting really bored. There’s no variety. Trying old meta is kinda fun sometimes, but painful when facing similar skill level players and realizing that my t3 melee (bears) cant’ beat their t1/3 ranged (headhunters). idk… game doesn’t make sense anymore, I guess the thing about old meta is that there was something to do. bears, dryads, talons, need to roar, rejuv, turn off auto faerie fire (btw it’d b really nice if dotts came out of the winds with this turned off), cyclone, abolish summons. Now with current meta hunts and MGs its… less entertaining.

I know there’s a lotta noise out there. Everybody and their mom thinks their race is weak, myself included. I hope blizz regains its understanding of balancing wc3, has a vision, an ideal image of what this game should look like and work towards it while keeping the original wc3 ideas in tact.

Sincerely,

A dedicated fan

1 Like
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I agree with this guy.

The game for Elf has become dumb. It’s Keeper mass hunts or mountain giants every game.

Night Elf tier 3 has been nerfed to the point it isn’t worth it. Bears are some of the worst investments in the game now (outside necromancers in 1v1). With the damage nerf and the direct counters to bears buffed (piercing is all buffed including trolls and rifles), it has become a joke of a unit in the game. Talons’ counter has also been buffed while its cost was nerfed (again, piercing destroys talons and summoning/AOE heroes including shadow hunter’s serpents and/or far seer). The irony with talons was although they were always complained by the Orcs for being super annoying, the winrate of NE vs Orc had always favored Orc in pro scene (with Elf pros all around the world agreeing talons were basically unviable in certain maps if the Orc played properly). Basically, the talon game of NE vs Orc used to depend on the Orc screwing up and with talons nerfed to this degree, there just isn’t a reason to get it.

And for the first time, demon hunter and panda became almost worthless heroes. Demon hunter is nerfed to the point it’s almost suicide to consider getting him now. Heck, he is supposed to counter summoning heroes but he gets countered even by Keeper. And panda? With the AOE cap nerfed and the mana nerfed, its damage just doesn’t justify anymore. Panda was used in 2 matchups. Vs human and Vs undead. Vs human, panda was used to buy time and play late game vs human who fast expoed. Guess what? With this patch, every human just masses rifles and plays aggressive. Panda is generally considered worthless until level 3. And because rifle play forced a level 1 panda, the hero isn’t even ideal anymore added on with the new nerfs. Level 1 breath of fire doesn’t do any noticeable damage at all vs rifles. And the worst part is even level 5 panda gets countered by a simple level 2 alchemist’s heal spray with brilliance aura. It’s almost a free loss by picking panda vs human at this point. And vs undead? Unholy aura + Statue seem to outheal panda’s dps at this point. Panda doesn’t even counter units anymore with the new nerfs. Try countering mass gargs or fiends with panda. It pretty much does 0 dmg even with level 2 breath of fire and your panda is out of mana.

On the other hand, you buffed Night Elf tier 1 units. Unlike other races, it is a horrible economical decision to opt tier 2 or tier 3 Elf units over tier 1 units (outside mountain giants that deal 0 dmg and never die making each “battle” last like 20 minutes). What is the point of tech if you get punished for it? Hunts are better bears than bears. Glaives are better dryads than dryads. Hunts are better talons than talons.
And bears, talons all get countered way too easily by other races now. Is all Elf units in 1v1 supposed to come from Ancient of “War”? Ancient of Lore and especially Ancient of Wind and Chimera Roost became obsolete this patch. Considering Chimeras were already considered some of the worst investments in 1v1 outside surprise massed teleports, a nerfed Chimera with its counters (again, piercing buffed), made this unit worse. Sure you don’t need Winds anymore but considering every Elf unit is weak to piercing including hunts, why would anyone in his or her right minds opt Chimeras when Chimeras are huge investments that are especially vulnerable to piercing itself?

As a long WC3 fan, I ask to rebalance Elf properly. Bears, Talons, Chimeras, Demon Hunter, Panda has been nerfed too much this patch. I don’t like watching Keeper mass hunts every game or Archmage mass rifles or DK fiends or far seer mass trolls (or raider/walker which ensnare really needs some heavy adjustments in the game) every game. The game has basically become for all races, “braindead mass tier 1 units!” Also, why is pretty much every Elf unit weak to piercing? Bears. Chimeras. Dryads. Hunts. Glaives. Talons. Faerie Dragons. I mean you buffed rifles and trolls which are extremely high hitting piercing units. Shouldn’t there be an armour type for Elf units that is … more diverse and capable vs piercing?

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Lol this reminds me of terran MMM in SC2 (Marine, Marauder and Medivac). They were so overwhelming at both frontal assault and drop harassment till LotV. BLZ had to buff various AOE and late game armor upgrades to counter this deadly combo.

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Aren’t bears heavy armor? They are not weak to piercing?

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they are heavy armor and this is the reason why you need mountain giant with chimeras instead, because their aoe alone kills them.

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there are so much quirks around nightelf:

  • t3 tech with 1 archer, because its sufficient to hold early game attacks. i wanna see any race do that.

  • huntress, expo + tech simultaniously.

  • staff allowing for absurd suicidal gameplay without punishment, and low effort high effect micro. i rarely see nightelfs (not even pro players) micro units the regular way.

  • the early game units share upgrades, and the late game units share upgrades, which is really ridiculous, if you think about that. no other race techs two heavy melee, heavy air, ground and flying anti casters, aswell as TWO anti air with the same upgrades. dryads should absolutely share upgrades with archers and huntresses.

  • 145 gold dryads: are magic immune, the fastest unit in the game, have slow poison (other races pick naga sea witch for that) and autocast dispel.

  • bears used to be hands down the strongest t3 melee units in bare numbers, which effectively can be pre-massed at t2. it used to outduel everything except taurens (because of their healthpool) WITHOUT using any spells, which happen to be the strongest aoe damage buff and strongest single target heal in the game.

  • wisps can detonate to dispel and area burn mana.

so now you’re bringing to the table that the easiest and most straight forward “bear dryad” strat is more fair to play against - that stuff gets really boring to play against, and probably really boring to play - after like 15 years of rampage. bears didnt get nerfed, they got bugfixed. nightelf got insane amounts of buffs for that tiny nerf, which brought bears back in line with the other t3 melee units, while giving elf another braindead way to win games easily. i think its nice mountain giants see some play, but quite honestly, i think they’re apparently pretty broken, too.

except for a full walloff or walling off wisps with wells there isnt even a building placement for nightelves.

its not like you’re forced to play broken keeper/alchi, because now bear dryad is more fair to play against.

overall im not overly satisfied with the mechanics around nightelf. i think they could use some sort of rework of the moonwells / general healing and the staff is just a dirty fix for it - its a bad mechanic for competitive play. moonwell healing can get really oppressive at times, and really unreliably at other.

nightelf sometimes feels like: “how much power can we possibly stuff into units and what do we need to make awkward to balance that out”

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sometimes I wonder… do ppl like duststalker actually think they’re right? do they really not see the bias and lack of understanding in their attempts at argument? do they really not see how the way they speak and tone of their post, that they’re doing nothing other than being toxic?

We can always spend days arguing with people like this and get nowhere. The point of this post is to try and point a direction for balance where it is also fun to play, and that recent patches have been reducing the micro potential or entertainment value of the game, without pointing too many fingers and whining about biased balance opinions.

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People just need to take their heads out of their b***s and realize why everything has spiraled out of control…

Start on post 38 and my other responses from that point on in the following thread