if you were in charge of the balance in warcraft 3

[Pandaprewmaster325]

how you will change the game balance ? not only unit stats but game mechanics , food cap , etc what changes you will make to the game?

 

[Uncle]

I would remove TP Scrolls from the game and replace them with a similar mechanic that is readily available to the Player (it would still have some kind of cost / cooldown). Then I'd try to do the same for Scroll of Healing and other "required" Items that have huge impact on the game.

I'm not a fan of the game's reliance on Items to handle these important interactions. Items are treated as optional and out of reach, yet the ones stated above are almost essential. That being said, I'm not sure if this would actually be a good change for the game. I guess if the replacement mechanics were interesting enough I could see it working.

 

[FeelMyRash]

On a similar note to Uncle, I'd give every Hero access to some sort of Revealing skill that they know right from the beginning.

Currently, the only Heroes who have something like this are the Far Seer and PotM. Other races have to rely on an item or a specific unit, which I think is kind of boring. Another problem is having to learn these skills for the Heroes that do have them is kind of ridiculous imo.

All Heroes should have a revealing skill. The whole invisibility mechanic itself could probably be redone as well but I'll leave it at that for now.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

I would remove TP Scrolls from the game and replace them with a similar mechanic that is readily available to the Player (it would still have some kind of cost / cooldown). Then I'd try to do the same for Scroll of Healing and other "required" Items that have huge impact on the game.

I'm not a fan of the game's reliance on Items to handle these important interactions. Items are treated as optional and out of reach, yet the ones stated above are almost essential. That being said, I'm not sure if this would actually be a good change for the game. I guess if the replacement mechanics were interesting enough I could see it working.

this would be a huge change well thing is is it going to be cheaper than town portal? where would it be available? a building? or an ability on a hero?

On a similar note to Uncle, I'd give every Hero access to some sort of Revealing skill that they know right from the beginning.

Currently, the only Heroes who have something like this are the Far Seer and PotM. Other races have to rely on an item or a specific unit, which I think is kind of boring. Another problem is having to learn these skills for the Heroes that do have them is kind of ridiculous imo.

All Heroes should have a revealing skill. The whole invisibility mechanic itself could probably be redone as well but I'll leave it at that for now.

thats interesting but wont this kinda make the owl and far sight useless? since all heroes has a scout skill , how will the invisibility mechanic be changed?

 

[FeelMyRash]

thats interesting but wont this kinda make the owl and far sight useless? since all heroes has a scout skill , how will the invisibility mechanic be changed?

Well I haven't thought much into it and I haven't really played online so it might not be viable at all, but I was thinking something along the lines of multiple levels of invisibility (like how there's the "Invisible" and,"Burrowed" type now).

Basically I'm thinking add a new kind of Invisibility called "Stealth". Spells like "Shadow meld" and the Blademaster's "Wind Walk" would use this.

Some "Reveal" spells would be weaker and only reveal "Stealthed" and "Burrowed" enemies, and only in a small area around the Hero like Dust of Appearance. This could also be the effect of the basic level of "True Sight" that some units have.

Every Race could have a specific Hero with the more powerful "Reveal" spell that would reveal actually "Invisible" enemies (those who are invisible by magic or are particularly gifted with stealth. Blademaster's "Wind Walk" could be here instead). Maybe normal units could have an upgrade that increases their True Sight to this level.

Spells like "Far Sight" and "Owl Scout" could go in either category of Reveal. Maybe only reveal "Stealthed" units to balance the map-wide effect they have, or have the last level reveal all kinds of invisibility.

Just a few ideas I had. Idk how they'd really fit in standard Melee. I think stealth and invisibility is an interesting feature that most games don't utilize beyond "I can't see you until I use this ability".

 

[PurrsandMlems]

ahh, where should i begin...

for starters i would ensure some heroes dont start out with an absurdly high amount on their damage dice, or with negative armor for no reason, or an extra 100 base hitpoint for no reason, or that equipping an orb causes your effective dps to fall on some others due to discrepancy of dice side amount between regular and with orb attack.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

Well I haven't thought much into it and I haven't really played online so it might not be viable at all, but I was thinking something along the lines of multiple levels of invisibility (like how there's the "Invisible" and,"Burrowed" type now).

Basically I'm thinking add a new kind of Invisibility called "Stealth". Spells like "Shadow meld" and the Blademaster's "Wind Walk" would use this.

Some "Reveal" spells would be weaker and only reveal "Stealthed" and "Burrowed" enemies, and only in a small area around the Hero like Dust of Appearance. This could also be the effect of the basic level of "True Sight" that some units have.

Every Race could have a specific Hero with the more powerful "Reveal" spell that would reveal actually "Invisible" enemies (those who are invisible by magic or are particularly gifted with stealth. Blademaster's "Wind Walk" could be here instead). Maybe normal units could have an upgrade that increases their True Sight to this level.

Spells like "Far Sight" and "Owl Scout" could go in either category of Reveal. Maybe only reveal "Stealthed" units to balance the map-wide effect they have, or have the last level reveal all kinds of invisibility.

Just a few ideas I had. Idk how they'd really fit in standard Melee. I think stealth and invisibility is an interesting feature that most games don't utilize beyond "I can't see you until I use this ability".

thats a nice idea wonder if its possible to create a "stealth" condition where it would need higher levels of true sight to reveal it still no unit that is invisible can attack without revealing itself maybe the "stealth" factor would change this?

ahh, where should i begin...

for starters i would ensure some heroes dont start out with an absurdly high amount on their damage dice, or with negative armor for no reason, or an extra 100 base hitpoint for no reason, or that equipping an orb causes your effective dps to fall on some others due to discrepancy of dice side amount between regular and with orb attack.

so you will change the dice on some heroes? such as who? and which hero starts with negative armor ? as far as i know all heroes have 100 HP as base health , and orbs might impact the DPS negatively which orb?

 

[PurrsandMlems]

I taken another look, could not find any negative armor value indeed.
However there is inconsistency across the board as some heroes start out with extra armor.
Mountain King, Tauren Chieftain, Death Knight, Pandaren Brewmaster have defense base of 1 instead of 0.
Two heroes, the Paladin and Goblin Tinker starts with 2 armor base value.
Also Crypt Lord gets 25 for base health instead 100.

Warden has 2 - 11, Daemonhunter and Blademaster have 2 - 12, Goblin Alchemist 3 - 10 for their Damage number of dice - Damage sides per Die values.
The orbs sinking damage thing i have mentioned seems to be campaign hero thing, thus not affecting multiplayer and skirmish.

 

[Uncle]

ahh, where should i begin...

for starters i would ensure some heroes dont start out with an absurdly high amount on their damage dice, or with negative armor for no reason, or an extra 100 base hitpoint for no reason, or that equipping an orb causes your effective dps to fall on some others due to discrepancy of dice side amount between regular and with orb attack. I taken another look, could not find any negative armor value indeed.
However there is inconsistency across the board as some heroes start out with extra armor.
Mountain King, Tauren Chieftain, Death Knight, Pandaren Brewmaster have defense base of 1 instead of 0.
Two heroes, the Paladin and Goblin Tinker starts with 2 armor base value.
Also Crypt Lord gets 25 for base health instead 100.

Warden has 2 - 11, Daemonhunter and Blademaster have 2 - 12, Goblin Alchemist 3 - 10 for their Damage number of dice - Damage sides per Die values.
The orbs sinking damage thing i have mentioned seems to be campaign hero thing, thus not affecting multiplayer and skirmish.

I agree that some numbers are silly. For example, -6 max damage and +6 min damage on the Blademaster would reduce the randomness of his attacks and prevent situations like when he deals a 25 damage hit followed by a 45 damage hit on the very same target - despite nothing changing. This gives players a better understanding of when they should retreat or press on since things are more consistent.

But balancing like that is a dangerous game to play since you're at risk of damaging the personality of the heroes. A bit of randomness makes the game feel fresh and exciting and allows for a lot more "we've never seen that before" moments.

So I'd argue that there is a good reason why these Heroes have these differences. The Blademaster is a master of the sword, it's thematic for him to hit harder than for example the Far Seer, who thematically would be offering advice/wisdom over brawn. You can imagine the Blademaster in a battle, sword clanging against his opponent's armor a few times before finding their weak spot and dishing out a powerful blow (Critical Strike).

I don't want the game to become too methodical - then it loses that human touch that makes most things exciting.

this would be a huge change well thing is is it going to be cheaper than town portal? where would it be available? a building? or an ability on a hero?

I would probably first try to make it an innate ability that the Player always has access to, similar to a Ping. It'd basically be an Ability that doesn't require a unit to be selected to use. Then I suppose you would target the Hero that you want to be the "host" for this ability, then target a Town Hall, and then from there it'd be the same as the current Town Portal. Then this ability could go on cooldown for a few minutes. Perhaps it's cooldown can be bypassed for a cost of Gold, sort of like the Buyback mechanic in DotA where you can skip the wait for a heavy fee. So you'd have a "free tp" on long cooldown and an "expensive TP" on command (although limited in some way to prevent endless spamming).

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

I would probably first try to make it an innate ability that the Player has access to, similar to a Ping. It'd basically be an Ability that doesn't require a unit to be selected to use. Then I suppose you would target the Hero that you want to be the "host" for this ability, then target a Town Hall, and then from there it'd be the same as the current Town Portal. Then this ability could go on cooldown for a few minutes. Perhaps it's cooldown can be bypassed for a cost of Gold, sort of like the Buyback mechanic in DotA where you can skip the wait for a heavy fee.

ah i see its like the MOBA TP where you press a button and you automatically go back to your base , but wouldn't that damage that tactic in games where you gotta force your enemy to TP and waste his TP?

 

[Uncle]

ah i see its like the MOBA TP where you press a button and you automatically go back to your base , but wouldn't that damage that tactic in games where you gotta force your enemy to TP and waste his TP?

It'd be an Ability with a cost/cooldown, so forcing the opponent to use it would hurt them. The idea would remain the same, if your opponent has used their TP then there will be an opening where you can exploit this fact. "My TP is on cooldown, I can't help".

 

[PurrsandMlems]

that does seem like an idea worth a try.

as for the scroll of healing, suppose every player built shop can simply sell that if its so essential.
it might use a mechanics wise tweak, to function somewhat similar like the essence of blight ability does. there would be a total amount of healing that gets distributed equally among units affected, instead of being simply a flat value healed on per unit. also can implement a total cap, and make it prioritize targets effected, like prefer higher unit level among those affected to apply the now limited healing to.

 

[deepstrasz]

It'd be an Ability with a cost/cooldown, so forcing the opponent to use it would hurt them. The idea would remain the same, if your opponent has used their TP then there will be an opening where you can exploit this fact. "My TP is on cooldown, I can't help".

That limits strategy. Say I want to retreat with one hero and send another hero with a couple of troops to aid my ally, all at the (quasi) same time (since we're not AIs, yet).

 

[Uncle]

That limits strategy. Say I want to retreat with one hero and send another hero with a couple of troops to aid my ally, all at the (quasi) same time (since we're not AIs, yet).

It does prevent that strategy, but is that strategy ever used and if so, would it be missed?

I watch a whole lot of Grubby ladder content and I don't think I've ever seen someone split their army between two different heroes that each have their own TP.

Also, this change would probably open up the door to new strategies as well so it's not like you're losing something without gaining anything in return.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

that does seem like an idea worth a try.

as for the scroll of healing, suppose every player built shop can simply sell that if its so essential.
it might use a mechanics wise tweak, to function somewhat similar like the essence of blight ability does. there would be a total amount of healing that gets distributed equally among units affected, instead of being simply a flat value healed on per unit. also can implement a total cap, and make it prioritize targets effected, like prefer higher unit level among those affected to apply the now limited healing to.

that would also impact the way scroll of healing is used a lot in fact it might impact it negatively i would say since not all units gonna be effected and the limited amount of healing in this case maybe reducing its cost will be better?

 

[Bleeq]

I never thought much about TPs but uncle's idea is a good one.

i have two broad conceptual things that id like to change.
firstly, make heroes level faster, but to balance this make them scale slower. the idea here is to give your heroes better access to all their spells and more often. would it also open up hero synergies? because a third hero might have access to more spells? that would beneficial too
i dont want to see heroes buffed if anything id prefer they were a little nerfed compared to standard units but it would hopefully open the up to using ore of their kits

secondly ranged units tend toward dominance in the later game because of the crowding and pathing etc. so maybe they could scale less, which could be done by changing their damage dice, seeing as damage upgrades just add dice.
it's a way to avoid them being too gimped in the early game at least.

either way i think there needs to be a systematic balance shift toward close combat units given their inherent disadvantages


PS sorry about bad grammar etc i spilt coffee on the keyboard this morning and this is all i can muster without copy pasting soe things out of existing text

 

[Retera]

I'm not qualified to maintain the balance of this game because I don't care if it's fair, and I just like changing things for fun to prove I can and enjoy the change of pace.

So, I would make sure to have a button for either existing or Frozen Throne balance that players could queue for, as well as a button for Reign of Chaos balance that players could queue for, and then I would add a new mode for my stupid Retera balance that players could queue for so that when they inevitably told me that Retera Balance Is Dumb (and could prove they were right about it) then I could show them that it wasn't a forced change that came at the cost of their previous experience, but rather a new option for play that folks could mess around with.

Then, on Retera Balance, I would add Naga as a playable race. But it would not be the stupid campaign Naga with the god-tier units that have 8x normal hit point regeneration and only 1 town hall tier. That's ridiculous. In my new Change Of Pace mode, we would have:

• Similar to how Night Elf can research Ultravision at the Hunter's Hall lumber depo, the Naga would be able to research Amphibious movement at their lumber depo
• All other races that are not Naga would have a Shipyard building that could be built in shallow water to allow movement similar to Naga but with transport ships
• All maps in this new mode would be new maps that have water, so the naga amphibious mechanic and the ships mechanic is always more relevant and applicable
• Naga units only regenerate hit points while in water, like how Night Elves only regenerate hit points at night
• The game User Interface would have a 3x5 command card to create build space for the new building. It would also make it easier to mod in larger build lists for custom races in custom maps and stuff

• The game user interface would have 3x3 command card allowing up to 9 items on heroes, so that custom hero RPGs made with the default game systems could add a little more flair and complexity when users make stuff in world editor

(There would be 3x5 command card like listed above. In the picture above, we only see 3x3 ability command card because it's cut off. Only the hero items would be 3x3)

• Selecting units would no longer cap at 12. Instead it would use pages and let the user select as many as they want, so that noobs can drag select big armies. Of course the pros would still use carefully constructed control groups -- this is just for noobs to have an easier time when monkeying about. In the Frozen Throne and Reign of Chaos versus modes (which would be separate from this new mode), there would still be only 4 races, and the 12 unit selection cap, so that pros don't lose their things/their sense of place.
• Food cap 300, but that means the path finding algorithm has to be faster and smoother, so then it would be changed to be so.
• The tavern would rotate the list of available heroes each night, and have new heroes. Probably some heroes would be seasonally added that sometimes show up on certain nights of the game. That way we could keep it feeling fresh and add heroes for people to try periodically throughout seasons while otherwise keeping most of the balance tame.
• Each race would have a 5th hero for fun, and I might add flying heroes at higher tech trees for fun similar to what was shown in the Warcraft 3 Alpha but scrapped because it was overpowered. Flying heroes actually are indeed stupid and overpowered, but I would put them in anyway again to freshen things up. To help with the balance of overpowered things, I would probably remove upkeep or at least up the population cap to a much higher number and increase the default amount of gold in gold mines. Then larger armies could offset the availability of flying heroes at higher tech levels.
  • Human Heroes: Paladin, Gryphon Rider [tier 3 only flying dwarf hero], Archmage, Blood Mage, Ranger [elven, the one that later inspired sylvanus during wc3 development]
  • Orc Heroes: Blademaster, Far Seer [tier 3 only wyvern rider mystical hero], Tauren Chieftain, Shadow Hunter, Warlord [green skinned hero inspired by the "Chaos Orc Warlord" model]
  • Undead Heroes: Necromancer [Necromancer model with hero glow that was used in campaign as Kel'thuzad], Lich, Dreadlord [level 6 skill replaced with Bat Form transformation skill, the only flying hero who doesn't require tier 3 but instead requires hero level 6, offering a possible flying hero rush option in the game], Crypt Lord [re-themed as a spider lord, bigger Crypt Fiend rather than a beetle], Dark Ranger
  • Night Elf Heroes: Moon Priestess [tier 3 only owl-riding flying hero], Keeper of the Grove, Warden, Archdruid [fun hero with a model similar to Furion, but new abilities], Furbolg Shaman [hero glow added to this model. It's thematically present as a replacement for Demon Hunter that was moved to a neutral hero for fun. it has all new abilities]
  • Naga Heroes: Sea Witch, Royal Guard [hero glow added to this model, and new abilities], Deepsea Queen [3 tailed new hero model based on Queen Azshara in the newer WoW stuff maybe], Assassin [probably some cool new blade-wielding naga hero with all new abilities], Summoner [hero glow added to this model, and all new abilities]. NOTE: Naga have no flying heroes because they are amphibious-movement-type waterwalking cheaters
  • Tavern Heroes: (different groups offered randomly at night, below would be the starting groups for the first season)
    • Group 1: Crusader (Garithos model, but all new abilities), Beastmaster, Pandaren Brewmaster, Goblin Tinker
    • Group 2: Eredar Sorcerer (model similar to Archimonde but mostly all new abilities), Death Knight [a dismounted rune-blade wielder that looks thematically like the Lich King hero from Wrath of the Lich King, for fun], Demon Hunter [uses the "Evil Illidan" model to look more cool as a neutral hero now that it's separated from Night Elf race], Orc Warlock [uses the model of gul'dan and would have an ability to turn target allied orc units into chaos orcs, as a fun extra]
    • Group 3: Goblin Alchemist, Draenei Elder Sage [Akama's model, but all new hero abilities], Firelord, Silithid King [a renamed version of the Crypt Lord hero from the Frozen Throne undead, big beetle guy]
• Because of the larger command cards, each item shop would include a larger list of available items. The Backpack upgrade for units would have a Level 2 that gives the units an additional inventory slot, so units can carry 3 and heroes can carry 9, instead of 2/6
• Other Techtree changes
  • Human:
    • Barracks trains Footman, Archer [high elf], Knight
    • Sorceress/priest merged into a Mage Priest unit, to be different. Uses the model of the Apprentice Wizard probably. Has Heal, Dispel Magic, and Invisibility. The Archmage has Polymorph instead of Summon Water Elemental, since the Sorceress is gone. Spell Breaker no longer requires Arcane Vault. Instead of Arcane Sanctum, there is a Mage Tower building and the third unit it trains is the Dragonhawk Rider.
    • New building, Dwarven Forge trains Riflemen and Mountaineers and Mortar Team
    • The Workshop trains Flying Machine and tanks. Tanks can be piloted by Rifleman or Mortar Teams to gain the attack of those units from behind the protection of fortified armor. Gryphon rider is gone because it was used as a hero, so now Tanks (and knights) are the top tier unit for the race.
    • I'm interested to try the Reign of Chaos Beta balance that I missed out on back in the day, so I would change back to that to be different. This means:
      • Town Hall trains the 5 possible racial heroes
      • Keep requires Barracks
      • Altar of Kings is only for reviving heroes, and requires Keep
      • Castle still requires Altar of Kings but now that makes more sense as part of the above progression
  • Orc:
    • Pig Farm separate from Burrow, Forge and Lumbermill models from the Beta brought back to split out War Mill back to two buildings. Burrow gains a different attack based on whether it has Grunts, Headhunters, or Peons in it.
    • Like human, the different progression from RoC Beta put back in:
      • Akin to how Barracks trains knight on human, the Barracks trains Tauren on Orc [like we see on RoC Beta].
      • Great Hall trains the 5 possible racial heroes
      • Stronghold requires Barracks
      • Altar of Storms is only for reviving heroes, and requires Stronghold
      • Fortress requires Altar of Storms
    • As a spiritual addendum to the above, Spirit Lodge again trains Spirit Walkers.
    • The top tier building for the race is a Dragon Roost building, inspired by Warcraft 2 for fun. Trains some green dragons with red wings just like Warcraft 2 because those are cool. Of course, these would be toned down in power level to match Frost Wyrms and would not have the statistical values from the Dragons on Warcraft 3 because having a place race train those would be busted and overpowered.
  • Undead
    • Gargoyle Spire building brought back from the beta, because the model looks cool and we have more command card slots now
    • Again, RoC beta progressions put back in:
      • Necropolis trains the 5 possible racial heroes and has a cool model of being in a pool of green goop
      • Halls of the Dead requires Crypt
      • Altar of Darkness requires Halls of the Dead, and is only for reviving heroes
      • Black Citadel requires Altar of Darkness
    • Since the Death Knight naming was used as a WotLK inspired neutral hero, the Necromancer was used as a hero. Thus, in turn, the Temple of the Damned building now trains Banshee and Obsidian Statue, and Obsidian Statue no longer requires Tomb of Relics. The Slaughterhouse now can train Sky Barge as an additional means for moving units around fast in the slot previously occupied by Obsidian Statue.
    • Gargoyles come from Gargoyle spire, and so the third slot on Crypt is now occupied by the Abomination. This is similar now to how Tauren is the third slot on Orc Barracks, and Knight is the third slot on Human Barracks, and these units are better balanced against each other.
    • The second unit on Gargoyle Spire is the Destroyer, which can be trained outright and looks more visually distinct from the Obsidian Statue. Obsidian Statue no longer has destroyer form, looks more like a Plague Spreader from WotLK, and instead has a 3 ability progression as a caster since necromancer is gone and otherwise Undead would only have 1 caster upgrade (banshee). This 3 ability progression is:
      • 1st ability: better version of the health/mana restore abilities that does both at once
      • 2nd ability: spawn blight constantly around the statue when toggled on, but drains light amount of mana
      • 3rd ability: periodically spawn corpses around the statue, and increase the rate of Exhume Corpses on any nearby meat wagons
    • Frost Wyrm used for a Raise Frost Wyrm ability on the Necromancer hero, and so instead of Boneyard building the undead instead have some cool thing inspired by screenshots of Warcraft 3 alpha from when the undead had that withering tree building.
    • Instead, for their top level unit, the Undead have Destroyer and Sky Barges. An upgrade allows Banshees to attack from within a Sky Barge, so effectively loading it with a bunch of banshees can make it into a potentially powerful flying unit.
  • Night Elf:
    • Bear Den/Barrow Den building brought back from the beta, as well as a new ancient called Ancient of Wilds using that RoC beta icon that loosely resembles the model of the Ancient of Wonders but not really.
    • Ancient of War would train Watcher [light melee unit, looks like Sentry campaign unit but with an owl on her shoulder -- essentially a dismounted version of Huntress from RoC/TFT balance], Archer, and Druid of the Claw whose Bear Form would be roughly evenly matched with other 3rd units in this slot in the above races [Abomination, Tauren, Knight] and would require a Bear Den and tier 3 to construct. Archer would be the one who requires Hunter's Hall. Watcher requires nothing. This makes the races more consistent, and more similar, as a possible pathway to balance. (i.e., Watcher/Ghoul/Grunt/Footman similarity is increased, Archer/CryptFiend/Headhunter/Archer similar, Bear/Abomination/Tauren/Knight similar and stats and costs might be tweaked to normalize these first building unit cycles).
    • RoC beta progression:
      • Tree of Life trains the 5 possible racial heroes
      • Tree of Ages requires Ancient of War
      • Altar of Elders requires Tree of Ages and is only for reviving heroes
      • Tree of Eternity requires Altar of Elders
    • Wisp heal can target ancients or units, maybe more like RoC Beta stuff, whereas moon wells only restore mana.
    • Ancient of Lore now trains dryad and a third druid who can shapeshift into Owlkin, which is an advanced range combat unit balanced against Riflemen, Troll Berserker, and whatever undead are going to have to fill in this gap.
    • Ancient of the Wilds trains probably a nerfed version of Mountain Giant, and Feral Druids who can shapeshift into cat form which has good movement speed and a melee siege attack loosely similar to the Orc Raider unit, and a jump ability only usable while morphed which is just for thematic fun and is probably overpowered and would be nerfed over time in patches.
    • The Barrow Den would train the Glaive Thrower probably.
  • Naga:
    • The Spawning Grounds would train again a cycle of [light melee]/[ranged that requires lumber depo]/[tier3 melee] balanced against the others. In this case it would probably be Mur'gul Reaver, Snap Dragon, Naga Myrmidon.
    • The main town hall unit type would probably have naming like Temple of Tides/ Temple of Waves/ Temple of Seas or something.
    • RoC Beta progression:
      • Temple of Tides trains the 5 possible racial heroes
      • Temple of Waves requires Spawning Grounds
      • Altar of Depths requires Temple of Waves and is only for reviving heroes
      • Temple of Seas requires Altar of Depths
    • The caster would not have Cyclone, Frost Armor, and Parasite as these are not racially unique -- only Parasite is. There would be all racially unique abilities for the Siren, as well as other caster(s).
    • Their item shop would sell Waterwalking Boots that could be used by any neutral heroes bought at a tavern, to give them amphibious movement type. Demon Hunters would not need Waterwalking Boots in order to walk on water.
    • Similar to how orcs can upgrade to have Spiked Barricades, naga buildings could upgrade to have an indentation upgrade that causes every building to be dug into the ground, producing shallow water around the building in a small area. Naga units regenerate hit points only when touching water. Similar to the undead's Sacrificial Skull, there would also be an item available at the Naga item shop building that would allow them to summon shallow water on a target land surface [as long as there was not already an enemy building there]. Unlike blight, the buildings of other races cannot be constructed on shallow water, so all other racial item shops would include Sand Bags that let them fill in shallow water created by the Naga in this way. Sand Bags would be a very cheap item, but would not work on an area indented by a naga building until the building was destroyed. Shallow water would not be able to be summoned on Blight until the Blight was dispelled, making the Undead a natural enemy of the Naga.

These are my bad ideas for having fun, and players would say it was imbalanced and then things would evolve over time.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

I'm not qualified to maintain the balance of this game because I don't care if it's fair, and I just like changing things for fun to prove I can and enjoy the change of pace.

So, I would make sure to have a button for either existing or Frozen Throne balance that players could queue for, as well as a button for Reign of Chaos balance that players could queue for, and then I would add a new mode for my stupid Retera balance that players could queue for so that when they inevitably told me that Retera Balance Is Dumb (and could prove they were right about it) then I could show them that it wasn't a forced change that came at the cost of their previous experience, but rather a new option for play that folks could mess around with.

Then, on Retera Balance, I would add Naga as a playable race. But it would not be the stupid campaign Naga with the god-tier units that have 8x normal hit point regeneration and only 1 town hall tier. That's ridiculous. In my new Change Of Pace mode, we would have:

• Similar to how Night Elf can research Ultravision at the Hunter's Hall lumber depo, the Naga would be able to research Amphibious movement at their lumber depo
• All other races that are not Naga would have a Shipyard building that could be built in shallow water to allow movement similar to Naga but with transport ships
• All maps in this new mode would be new maps that have water, so the naga amphibious mechanic and the ships mechanic is always more relevant and applicable
• Naga units only regenerate hit points while in water, like how Night Elves only regenerate hit points at night
• The game User Interface would have a 3x5 command card to create build space for the new building. It would also make it easier to mod in larger build lists for custom races in custom maps and stuff

View attachment 457725

• The game user interface would have 3x3 command card allowing up to 9 items on heroes, so that custom hero RPGs made with the default game systems could add a little more flair and complexity when users make stuff in world editor

View attachment 457726
(There would be 3x5 command card like listed above. In the picture above, we only see 3x3 ability command card because it's cut off. Only the hero items would be 3x3)

• Selecting units would no longer cap at 12. Instead it would use pages and let the user select as many as they want, so that noobs can drag select big armies. Of course the pros would still use carefully constructed control groups -- this is just for noobs to have an easier time when monkeying about. In the Frozen Throne and Reign of Chaos versus modes (which would be separate from this new mode), there would still be only 4 races, and the 12 unit selection cap, so that pros don't lose their things/their sense of place.
• Food cap 300, but that means the path finding algorithm has to be faster and smoother, so then it would be changed to be so.
• The tavern would rotate the list of available heroes each night, and have new heroes. Probably some heroes would be seasonally added that sometimes show up on certain nights of the game. That way we could keep it feeling fresh and add heroes for people to try periodically throughout seasons while otherwise keeping most of the balance tame.
• Each race would have a 5th hero for fun, and I might add flying heroes at higher tech trees for fun similar to what was shown in the Warcraft 3 Alpha but scrapped because it was overpowered. Flying heroes actually are indeed stupid and overpowered, but I would put them in anyway again to freshen things up. To help with the balance of overpowered things, I would probably remove upkeep or at least up the population cap to a much higher number and increase the default amount of gold in gold mines. Then larger armies could offset the availability of flying heroes at higher tech levels.
  • Human Heroes: Paladin, Gryphon Rider [tier 3 only flying dwarf hero], Archmage, Blood Mage, Ranger [elven, the one that later inspired sylvanus during wc3 development]
  • Orc Heroes: Blademaster, Far Seer [tier 3 only wyvern rider mystical hero], Tauren Chieftain, Shadow Hunter, Warlord [green skinned hero inspired by the "Chaos Orc Warlord" model]
  • Undead Heroes: Necromancer [Necromancer model with hero glow that was used in campaign as Kel'thuzad], Lich, Dreadlord [level 6 skill replaced with Bat Form transformation skill, the only flying hero who doesn't require tier 3 but instead requires hero level 6, offering a possible flying hero rush option in the game], Crypt Lord [re-themed as a spider lord, bigger Crypt Fiend rather than a beetle], Dark Ranger
  • Night Elf Heroes: Moon Priestess [tier 3 only owl-riding flying hero], Keeper of the Grove, Warden, Archdruid [fun hero with a model similar to Furion, but new abilities], Furbolg Shaman [hero glow added to this model. It's thematically present as a replacement for Demon Hunter that was moved to a neutral hero for fun. it has all new abilities]
  • Naga Heroes: Sea Witch, Royal Guard [hero glow added to this model, and new abilities], Deepsea Queen [3 tailed new hero model based on Queen Azshara in the newer WoW stuff maybe], Assassin [probably some cool new blade-wielding naga hero with all new abilities], Summoner [hero glow added to this model, and all new abilities]. NOTE: Naga have no flying heroes because they are amphibious-movement-type waterwalking cheaters
  • Tavern Heroes: (different groups offered randomly at night, below would be the starting groups for the first season)
    • Group 1: Crusader (Garithos model, but all new abilities), Beastmaster, Pandaren Brewmaster, Goblin Tinker
    • Group 2: Eredar Sorcerer (model similar to Archimonde but mostly all new abilities), Death Knight [a dismounted rune-blade wielder that looks thematically like the Lich King hero from Wrath of the Lich King, for fun], Demon Hunter [uses the "Evil Illidan" model to look more cool as a neutral hero now that it's separated from Night Elf race], Orc Warlock [uses the model of gul'dan and would have an ability to turn target allied orc units into chaos orcs, as a fun extra]
    • Group 3: Goblin Alchemist, Draenei Elder Sage [Akama's model, but all new hero abilities], Firelord, Silithid King [a renamed version of the Crypt Lord hero from the Frozen Throne undead, big beetle guy]
• Because of the larger command cards, each item shop would include a larger list of available items. The Backpack upgrade for units would have a Level 2 that gives the units an additional inventory slot, so units can carry 3 and heroes can carry 9, instead of 2/6
• Other Techtree changes
  • Human:
    • Barracks trains Footman, Archer [high elf], Knight
    • Sorceress/priest merged into a Mage Priest unit, to be different. Uses the model of the Apprentice Wizard probably. Has Heal, Dispel Magic, and Invisibility. The Archmage has Polymorph instead of Summon Water Elemental, since the Sorceress is gone. Spell Breaker no longer requires Arcane Vault. Instead of Arcane Sanctum, there is a Mage Tower building and the third unit it trains is the Dragonhawk Rider.
    • New building, Dwarven Forge trains Riflemen and Mountaineers and Mortar Team
    • The Workshop trains Flying Machine and tanks. Tanks can be piloted by Rifleman or Mortar Teams to gain the attack of those units from behind the protection of fortified armor. Gryphon rider is gone because it was used as a hero, so now Tanks (and knights) are the top tier unit for the race.
    • I'm interested to try the Reign of Chaos Beta balance that I missed out on back in the day, so I would change back to that to be different. This means:
      • Town Hall trains the 5 possible racial heroes
      • Keep requires Barracks
      • Altar of Kings is only for reviving heroes, and requires Keep
      • Castle still requires Altar of Kings but now that makes more sense as part of the above progression
  • Orc:
    • Pig Farm separate from Burrow, Forge and Lumbermill models from the Beta brought back to split out War Mill back to two buildings. Burrow gains a different attack based on whether it has Grunts, Headhunters, or Peons in it.
    • Like human, the different progression from RoC Beta put back in:
      • Akin to how Barracks trains knight on human, the Barracks trains Tauren on Orc [like we see on RoC Beta].
      • Great Hall trains the 5 possible racial heroes
      • Stronghold requires Barracks
      • Altar of Storms is only for reviving heroes, and requires Stronghold
      • Fortress requires Altar of Storms
    • As a spiritual addendum to the above, Spirit Lodge again trains Spirit Walkers.
    • The top tier building for the race is a Dragon Roost building, inspired by Warcraft 2 for fun. Trains some green dragons with red wings just like Warcraft 2 because those are cool. Of course, these would be toned down in power level to match Frost Wyrms and would not have the statistical values from the Dragons on Warcraft 3 because having a place race train those would be busted and overpowered.
  • Undead
    • Gargoyle Spire building brought back from the beta, because the model looks cool and we have more command card slots now
    • Again, RoC beta progressions put back in:
      • Necropolis trains the 5 possible racial heroes and has a cool model of being in a pool of green goop
      • Halls of the Dead requires Crypt
      • Altar of Darkness requires Halls of the Dead, and is only for reviving heroes
      • Black Citadel requires Altar of Darkness
    • Since the Death Knight naming was used as a WotLK inspired neutral hero, the Necromancer was used as a hero. Thus, in turn, the Temple of the Damned building now trains Banshee and Obsidian Statue, and Obsidian Statue no longer requires Tomb of Relics. The Slaughterhouse now can train Sky Barge as an additional means for moving units around fast in the slot previously occupied by Obsidian Statue.
    • Gargoyles come from Gargoyle spire, and so the third slot on Crypt is now occupied by the Abomination. This is similar now to how Tauren is the third slot on Orc Barracks, and Knight is the third slot on Human Barracks, and these units are better balanced against each other.
    • The second unit on Gargoyle Spire is the Destroyer, which can be trained outright and looks more visually distinct from the Obsidian Statue. Obsidian Statue no longer has destroyer form, looks more like a Plague Spreader from WotLK, and instead has a 3 ability progression as a caster since necromancer is gone and otherwise Undead would only have 1 caster upgrade (banshee). This 3 ability progression is:
      • 1st ability: better version of the health/mana restore abilities that does both at once
      • 2nd ability: spawn blight constantly around the statue when toggled on, but drains light amount of mana
      • 3rd ability: periodically spawn corpses around the statue, and increase the rate of Exhume Corpses on any nearby meat wagons
    • Frost Wyrm used for a Raise Frost Wyrm ability on the Necromancer hero, and so instead of Boneyard building the undead instead have some cool thing inspired by screenshots of Warcraft 3 alpha from when the undead had that withering tree building.
    • Instead, for their top level unit, the Undead have Destroyer and Sky Barges. An upgrade allows Banshees to attack from within a Sky Barge, so effectively loading it with a bunch of banshees can make it into a potentially powerful flying unit.
  • Night Elf:
    • Bear Den/Barrow Den building brought back from the beta, as well as a new ancient called Ancient of Wilds using that RoC beta icon that loosely resembles the model of the Ancient of Wonders but not really.
    • Ancient of War would train Watcher [light melee unit, looks like Sentry campaign unit but with an owl on her shoulder -- essentially a dismounted version of Huntress from RoC/TFT balance], Archer, and Druid of the Claw whose Bear Form would be roughly evenly matched with other 3rd units in this slot in the above races [Abomination, Tauren, Knight] and would require a Bear Den and tier 3 to construct. Archer would be the one who requires Hunter's Hall. Watcher requires nothing. This makes the races more consistent, and more similar, as a possible pathway to balance. (i.e., Watcher/Ghoul/Grunt/Footman similarity is increased, Archer/CryptFiend/Headhunter/Archer similar, Bear/Abomination/Tauren/Knight similar and stats and costs might be tweaked to normalize these first building unit cycles).
    • RoC beta progression:
      • Tree of Life trains the 5 possible racial heroes
      • Tree of Ages requires Ancient of War
      • Altar of Elders requires Tree of Ages and is only for reviving heroes
      • Tree of Eternity requires Altar of Elders
    • Wisp heal can target ancients or units, maybe more like RoC Beta stuff, whereas moon wells only restore mana.
    • Ancient of Lore now trains dryad and a third druid who can shapeshift into Owlkin, which is an advanced range combat unit balanced against Riflemen, Troll Berserker, and whatever undead are going to have to fill in this gap.
    • Ancient of the Wilds trains probably a nerfed version of Mountain Giant, and Feral Druids who can shapeshift into cat form which has good movement speed and a melee siege attack loosely similar to the Orc Raider unit, and a jump ability only usable while morphed which is just for thematic fun and is probably overpowered and would be nerfed over time in patches.
    • The Barrow Den would train the Glaive Thrower probably.
  • Naga:
    • The Spawning Grounds would train again a cycle of [light melee]/[ranged that requires lumber depo]/[tier3 melee] balanced against the others. In this case it would probably be Mur'gul Reaver, Snap Dragon, Naga Myrmidon.
    • The main town hall unit type would probably have naming like Temple of Tides/ Temple of Waves/ Temple of Seas or something.
    • RoC Beta progression:
      • Temple of Tides trains the 5 possible racial heroes
      • Temple of Waves requires Spawning Grounds
      • Altar of Depths requires Temple of Waves and is only for reviving heroes
      • Temple of Seas requires Altar of Depths
    • The caster would not have Cyclone, Frost Armor, and Parasite as these are not racially unique -- only Parasite is. There would be all racially unique abilities for the Siren, as well as other caster(s).
    • Their item shop would sell Waterwalking Boots that could be used by any neutral heroes bought at a tavern, to give them amphibious movement type. Demon Hunters would not need Waterwalking Boots in order to walk on water.
    • Similar to how orcs can upgrade to have Spiked Barricades, naga buildings could upgrade to have an indentation upgrade that causes every building to be dug into the ground, producing shallow water around the building in a small area. Naga units regenerate hit points only when touching water. Similar to the undead's Sacrificial Skull, there would also be an item available at the Naga item shop building that would allow them to summon shallow water on a target land surface [as long as there was not already an enemy building there]. Unlike blight, the buildings of other races cannot be constructed on shallow water, so all other racial item shops would include Sand Bags that let them fill in shallow water created by the Naga in this way. Sand Bags would be a very cheap item, but would not work on an area indented by a naga building until the building was destroyed. Shallow water would not be able to be summoned on Blight until the Blight was dispelled, making the Undead a natural enemy of the Naga.

These are my bad ideas for having fun, and players would say it was imbalanced and then things would evolve over time.

well well this was interesting to read the best comment so far! very in depth and entertaining i believe the beta had lots of unnecessary things such as a building that is only built to allow a unit to be trained at barracks , such as the issue of the garg spire which here you actually solved! although on the undead the necromancer is kind of a unit that defines that undead race as a whole limiting it to a hero would be kinda problematic ? as the raise dead is very limited i like the throw backs into the alpha such as the dreadlord morphing into a bat summon the wyrm etc good thing you didnt bring back the beta dreadlord ULT as that was the worst ult i ever seen , god its just awful despite its cool effect , i see you want the naga as a 5th race whom are very centered around water i think making a melee map pool would take long considering all the things to consider lol what i like the most is the tavern mechanic it implies that people "visit" the tavern a lot lets say 2 players want a DH and they know which night he spawns in the tavern both would battle to get him making the tavern of utter importance to both players , i see that splitting the orc war mill into 2 is a waste of resources as that was my initial thought when i tried the beta its better what we got tbh the burrows oh man it was funny to find out they were just a defensive building in the beta kind of like the bunker from CNC generals , i see a lot of beta/alpha ideas such as POTM being a flyer, the bear den , the extra druid , and the merging of the priest and sorc looks like a cleric from wc1 era , the archmage having the ability to turn people into sheeps aligns well with one of his pissed lines

the important question is would these changes be melee only or campaigns too?.

 

[Retera]

would these changes be melee only or campaigns too?.

In fantasy la la land where I was the king of game balance who gets to make these bad decisions for fun, of course the Reign of Chaos Campaign would have Reign of Chaos balance and the Frozen Throne campaign would have Frozen Throne balance, since that's how those games were and are, but the third set of campaigns to go along with my new fun ridiculous balance would be new campaigns that would use the new balance.

the archmage having the ability to turn people into sheeps aligns well with one of his pissed lines

I got the idea from them, because as I understand it from looking at stuff left in RoC Beta game files, in an earlier version of the game the sorceress had Water Elemental and the Archmage was the one who had polymorph. In my brainstorm post I deleted Sorceress though, so mine is not exactly the same.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

In fantasy la la land where I was the king of game balance who gets to make these bad decisions for fun, of course the Reign of Chaos Campaign would have Reign of Chaos balance and the Frozen Throne campaign would have Frozen Throne balance, since that's how those games were and are, but the third set of campaigns to go along with my new fun ridiculous balance would be new campaigns that would use the new balance.

thought so , as these changes you mention are lets say flip the game upside down lol

I got the idea from them, because as I understand it from looking at stuff left in RoC Beta game files, in an earlier version of the game the sorceress had Water Elemental and the Archmage was the one who had polymorph. In my brainstorm post I deleted Sorceress though, so mine is not exactly the same.

that would have been insane and kind of a throw back to wc1 when the ultimate spell caster could summon a powerful unit it was fun but unbalanced but fun

 

[FlameofChange]

Well, the balance status is pretty good right now, it only needs some tweaks here and there concerning abilities, stats and items.
Even if I agree with the QoL suggestions of @Retera , I quite disagree with his balance for good reasons :
☼ What happens if a hero dies in a ship ? Designer Dave clearly stated that it was the main reasons navy was out of question
☼ What happens to land only maps ?
☼ Ensnare & fiend web cloud be broken against flying heroes
☼ Random heroes in the Tavern, even cyclical, could decide a game because some builds & some races need specific tavern hero (the most obvious example is NE + naga sorceress)
☼ I don't mind as a seperate yet official gamemode, but imposing it on the main game is too unforgivable.
☼ Most of your suggestions makes the game much more complex and harder to handle, they may sound like cool ideas on paper but on practice they provoke too much side effects ; however as long as it is not functional & played I cannot conclude something solid. To be put simple : more is not better
☼ Each faction MUST NOT have overlapping units, why having rifleman AND high elf archer at the same time ? They both do ranged support, one can hold well the line and the other one is cheaper ; plus NE already have archer

However if you were trolling, my bad.

 

[Retera]

What happens if a hero dies in a ship ? Designer Dave clearly stated that it was the main reasons navy was out of question

Good idea. Let's amend my suggestion by saying that heroes can buy an item called Raft that allows them to move amphibiously on their own, and ships are unable to load heroes. So when you want your hero to guide your ships across the water, the user spawns a hero-specific raft that basically makes the hero amphibious. It would probably be a really cheap item using one of those sweet new 3x5 slots, for sale at the racial item shops and at Goblin Merchant and at Goblin Shipyard (if Goblin Shipyard building continues to exist?)

What happens to land only maps ?

What happens to maps that have no Tavern? There was a cutoff between RoC and TFT, so there would be a cutoff to my new weird brainstorm likewise. People would be advised to only play on maps for the new balance, like how TFT wants you to only play on TFT maps so that there is a Tavern present.

Random heroes in the Tavern, even cyclical, could decide a game because some builds & some races need specific tavern hero (the most obvious example is NE + naga sorceress)

Fwiw the Sea Witch is removed from the Tavern on my brainstorm balance for flair reasons (to make it a Naga hero) and not for any decent balance reasons. So that might shake up this one specific case, but I'm guessing that in a more general sense your point still stands. Maybe the tavern would have an ability that for an extra fee of like $20 players could get any hero even if it wasn't in the rotation. Not sure. Seems like something that would be fun to add, then play the game and see how it felt.

Ensnare & fiend web cloud be broken against flying heroes

If the Stats - Duration - Hero field is not working as expected on these abilities, then it could be fixed to start working to alleviate some of this issue.

I don't mind as a seperate yet official gamemode, but imposing it on the main game is too unforgivable.

What's the difference?

So for example, in 2-3 years when my Warsmash emulation has 1:1 feature parity with Frozen Throne, or possible sooner if AI technology gets too good to a point to where we can describe any War3 mod to ChatGPT and it responds with a zip file of that mod, then basically in the future I might make a based on these ideas that I could mess around with. If we assume that the mod would have its own expansion EXE type of thing that runs separately from RoC's Warcraft III.exe and TFT's Frozen Throne.exe, and maybe is conceptually a third launcher like Retera Madness.exe that kicks open the game with all these ideas running where versus mode and such applies those ideas, then what's the problem?

Don't we only get into problems if we erase Frozen Throne.exe or Warcraft III.exe from user computers... which... already happened anyway...

However if you were trolling, my bad.

I don't really feel as dead-set on the idea that the game has to be a certain way. I like the idea of Warcraft 3 being an engine where we can play multiple different game balances. I don't want to take away from someone else's experience or force them to lose the optionality of playing the old classic Frozen Throne, but I personally think that even if my ideas are bad and imbalanced I might enjoy trying them a few times -- both for the experience, and to learn first-hand more about the accuracy of constructive criticisms such as your accurate point that more is not always better.

 

[FlameofChange]

Thank you for your detailed response.

Good idea. Let's amend my suggestion by saying that heroes can buy an item called Raft that allows them to move amphibiously on their own, and ships are unable to load heroes. So when you want your hero to guide your ships across the water, the user spawns a hero-specific raft that basically makes the hero amphibious. It would probably be a really cheap item using one of those sweet new 3x5 slots, for sale at the racial item shops and at Goblin Merchant and at Goblin Shipyard (if Goblin Shipyard building continues to exist?)

Well, by fixing this you add up even more side effects : players have to find/lood/buy this item which take space in the inventory for other consumables.
Also making any hero able to move through water like this will shift strategies a lot, since you can go behind treelines and mess around with enemy workers without risking to transport it in a fragile zeppelin / boat. The whole point of amphibious heroes becomes more and more tricky.
Also what happens if this hero gives this item to another while in water ?

What happens to maps that have no Tavern? There was a cutoff between RoC and TFT, so there would be a cutoff to my new weird brainstorm likewise. People would be advised to only play on maps for the new balance, like how TFT wants you to only play on TFT maps so that there is a Tavern present.

Having or not having a tavern is deterministic. My point was if the hero list is indeed pseudo-random it will add too much RNG in melee games since you don't know if you will be able to fetch your favorite hero or not at a specific point. While I know and understand Warcraft 3 has a lot of randomness here and there, this is more about the unit behavior than map settings (you could say that random creep & items on creep are exceptions, but purely competitive map tends to have a deterministic setup).

Fwiw the Sea Witch is removed from the Tavern on my brainstorm balance for flair reasons (to make it a Naga hero) and not for any decent balance reasons. So that might shake up this one specific case, but I'm guessing that in a more general sense your point still stands. Maybe the tavern would have an ability that for an extra fee of like $20 players could get any hero even if it wasn't in the rotation. Not sure. Seems like something that would be fun to add, then play the game and see how it felt

First, the shifting of the Sea Witch out of the Tavern would shift balance too, since NE will no longer rely on her for a first DPS hero.That's why adding new races is cursed here (in both design & spirit).
Then, having a DLC for an ability exclusive to paid players in game mixing them with common players is atrociously pay to win ; as a paid separate game mode that would be stupid due to the triviality of making custom maps. If I had to concede to meet halfway, I would add it as a weekly/season gamemode for fun (like LoL do with Ultra Rapid Fire for example).

If the Stats - Duration - Hero field is not working as expected on these abilities, then it could be fixed to start working to alleviate some of this issue.

I mean, even with low duration for hero it is quite broken since you can specifically hunt heroes by spamming this ability again and again. Furthermore the fiend web tp the caught unit in front of it while being automatic & the unit easily spamable early on. Ensnaring a hero even for a second is one second you can use to encircle it and damage. I know you can already ensnare ground heroes but flying heroes aren't stuck by ground units so it's easier to catch them.
However, as in my ADHD faction, I could tolerate abilities (or even items !) which makes a hero flying, as long as it's not permanent nor able to attack in early levels.
Cherry on the cake there's also the battroll suicide ability, gargoyles, unmounted hippogryphs and dragonhawk ensnare which could destroy any flying hero with some training.
Here's a description so you don't have to search for it. Don't take the numbers literally as I want to show you an example of the main concept.

Spoiler

Transportation of the future (toggle)
☼ Makes the station master flying, but consumes 5 mana per second
☼ Can still use its spells while in the air
☼ Automatically lands on the ground if out of mana
☼ At level 1, cannot attack
☼ At level 2, can attack
☼ At level 3, can attack and gets a movement speed bonus

As a side note, stun abilities suffer from the same problem. Few heroes have only one available stun (or stun-like) so imagine if a whole army had fireballs. Also purely non-auto damaging abilities on units makes the micro-management non-korean proof (battroll & sappers suicide is an exception as it is single use).

I don't really feel as dead-set on the idea that the game has to be a certain way. I like the idea of Warcraft 3 being an engine where we can play multiple different game balances. I don't want to take away from someone else's experience or force them to lose the optionality of playing the old classic Frozen Throne, but I personally think that even if my ideas are bad and imbalanced I might enjoy trying them a few times -- both for the experience, and to learn first-hand more about the accuracy of constructive criticisms such as your accurate point that more is not always better.

While I'm also eager to let the community do their custom balance modes, it is already a bit the case with custom maps.
However, concerning your engine, not being limited to maps could be a good way to make content much more precise (I don't say easier, since hard coding is not accessible to everyone at first glance) and experiment the shit out of it.

 

[Retera]

Then, having a DLC for an ability exclusive to paid players in game mixing them with common players is atrociously pay to win

Oh yeah, sorry. I wrote this last night before bed. I meant 20 gold, not 20 dollars -- using the existing ingame currency.

Having or not having a tavern is deterministic. My point was if the hero list is indeed pseudo-random it will add too much RNG in melee games

Sorry, with regards to tavern maps versus non tavern maps, I meant that as an answer to your question about land only maps. So on this imaginary game version I was theorizing about, it would have its own maps that always included water.

Cherry on the cake there's also the battroll suicide ability, gargoyles, unmounted hippogryphs and dragonhawk ensnare which could destroy any flying hero with some training.

Since flying heroes are this easy to kill, isn't that a good thing? By default they seem like something that might be dangerously overpowered. But with all these air-killer functions in the game, maybe they're fine?

 

[FlameofChange]

Oh yeah, sorry. I wrote this last night before bed. I meant 20 gold, not 20 dollars -- using the existing ingame currency.

Ok, that makes sense now.

Sorry, with regards to tavern maps versus non tavern maps, I meant that as an answer to your question about land only maps. So on this imaginary game version I was theorizing about, it would have its own maps that always included water.

Like how Beyond the Throne does ?

Since flying heroes are this easy to kill, isn't that a good thing? By default they seem like something that might be dangerously overpowered. But with all these air-killer functions in the game, maybe they're fine?

Heroes are supposed to be hard to kill through their stats, type and abilities. There's no unit which are hero killer (maybe spellbreakers and Destroyers, but everybody is never alone). The only units which don't have significant reductions are elite melee units. Since heroes are never alone and you can't stack many melee units this balances itself. So when gargoyles and hippogryphs are able to get 100% damage against flying hero... they suddenly get OP & mandatory.
Even mages have magic, spell, pierce and siege reduction to avoid them being killed too fast.
The game has a lot of anti-air mechanics which doesn't check much about stats & types.
So flying heroes arrive in a strategy they weren't taken in account before.
Indeed we already have counter but that would be too much in this context. Why making air heroes then ? You would not be able to play them correctly since they are under constant threat from basic build orders.
A campaign or a custom map with flying heroes would be fun, I'm taking here a melee perspective as a custom techtree maker.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

really cool discussion by you 2 , i really like to see and read what are the vision and ideas other people have for the game things that they add on change etc, retera balance feels like beta balance of wc3 on the topic of what if a hero die in a ship well just like age of mythology the hero gets ejected to the nearest walkable terrain and if the shores lack it the hero dies.

 

[FlameofChange]

Well, I shall dump all the changes I want into Warcraft 3 Melee. It will include some QoL features, however before reading it, understand these following points :
☼ They are initial suggestions that might be subjected to evolve through testing
☼ They are intended to modernize some aspects of the game
☼ I am not a professional nor a regular competitive melee player
☼ I have the bias of making a lot of custom factions
☼ I don't take in account how the objects changes in the map editor (else it would be out of topic), I just focus on the in game behaviors
☼ I don't take in account here my editor-only suggestions (idem)
☼ Suggestions in red are quite experimental and could be canceled if it is too much
☼ Suggestions in grey are implemented and tested by myself
☼ When not mentionned, default values & behaviors are still present and unchanged
☼ I might change some details anytime, so don't be surprised if I changed my mind on something.

Are ya ready ? Good ! This post will be in 5 parts : one general and one per race.

X

General

Human

Undead

Orc

Night elves

☼ Pathing algorithm improved to dynamically scale with the number of player units
☼ Selection size increased to 24
☼ Between 13 and 18 units selected, 3 lines are shown
☼ Between 19 and 24 units selected, 4 lines are shown
☼ Formation pathing size separated from pathing size
☼ Default formation pathing size set to 32 (specific cases are intentionally omitted in this list)
☼ Formations have now 4 modes, spacing the units within differently
► Scaled to largest (as default vanilla)
► No formation (as default vanillaà
► Scaled to smallest (if too tight for big units, will scale on the big unit pathing size)
► Scaled to average (per unit, not per type)
These QoL would completely improve Warcraft 3 handling, even on custom maps. Formations would be much more consistent without forcing players to change their previous habits. Light air units would no longer stack in tight formations, as big units won't enlarge too much the formation.

☼ Unit UI Grid scales with the highest XY coordinate, maximum 6x6, default 4x3 (like vanilla)
☼ Option to hide unit commands
☼ Option to change unit and building icons team colored for the player, affected by allied colors, when applicable (like in Warcraft 2)
☼ Snow player minimap color has black borders
☼ Coal player minimap color has white borders
More QoL here, having impact to custom maps but again not changing player habits. It would let some buildings & shops much more breathing room.

☼ Bouncing attacks will return to the owner when finished

☼ Resurrecting a hero through a Tavern cannot be resurected again in a tavern for 60 seconds

Attack & Armor types
☼ Normal (not medium) armor
► Desc changed to No particular resistances or weaknesses
► Renamed into Structure armor
► Given to light structures like human towers, orc burrows, uprooted ancients
► New icon with a wooden structure
This will help balance them against absurd bonus damage

☼ Light armor
► Renamed into Air armor
► New icon with a wing
Light armor is completely reserved for medium & heavy air units

☼ Medium armor
► Renamed into Special armor
► New icon with a cloak
Medium armor is reserved for units frail to melee but resists ranged. So we give them a rogue-ish appearance

☼ Heavy armor
► Renamed into Basic armor
► New icon with a metal pauldron
Heavy armor is given to basic melee units, mechanical and large units ; so in this sence it has a "basic" stance against every types except magic. We find this logic again with special armor & unarmored to the warrior - mage - rogue balance.

☼ Piercing damage
► Renamed into ranged

Pandaren brewmaster
☼ Drunken brawler
► Evasion has a 0.5s cooldown
► Critical hit has a 5s cooldown
Less RNG.

Fragmentation shards
☼ Gains a more explicit visual effect

Peasant
☼ Militia ability
► Duration reduced from 45 to 10
► Expiration is frozen as long as the militia is within 2000 of a player owned town center
► Expiration reset to 10 every time the militia attacks an enemy non-peon non-ancient unit
► Militia HP increased from 240 to 275
Militia creeping would be nerfed, returning to its initial intent of defensive trump card.
Peasant tower rushing would be also nerfed as it would quickly return to peasant once outside of its called town center.
To compensate, they can stay indefinitely while in combat and/or defending the base, with some extra HP to leave more flexibility against early hero abilities.

Footman
☼ The first trained footman is a captain
☼ If the captain dies, the next trained footman becomes a captain
► Based on campaign captain
► Level 3
► 2 food cost
► Counted in the footman group (not a seperate type)
☼ Defend
► Deflection has a 1s cooldown
Early footmen would be a bit more interesting since you also get a captain by default. This introduces the captain system into the game.
While defend makes footies very reliable against early to mid ranged units, it would sometimes add too much intended DPS against mass ranged.

Priest
☼ Gains double damage against undead units
Logic, and a bit more DPS helps against undead machups

Siege engine
☼ Secondary attack
► Damage increased from 16 to 24
► Number of dices increased from 1 to 2
► Sides per dice increased from 2 to 4
► Reload time increased from 2 to 3 seconds
☼ Barrage
► Number of target reduced from 10 to 3
► Based on Siege engine secondary damage instead of a fix 25
► No longer replaces its main attack projectile art
► Deal pierce damage instead of spell (need to verify that) It already does that
Siege engine would get a higher punch against air units when they are fewer, and the same DPS in large numbers.
Rockets would have a much more coherent aesthetic since it obviously deals more damage as an arrow.
In Tier 3 that moves from 125 fix DPS to to 3x 28-42 every 3s, which is 70DPS.
However the damage would be less consistent when facing great hosts of flyers.
Adding one or two of these in a party would clearly add a good anti-air in late game, however it won't be as impactful as mass riflemen.
Less projectiles also means more clarity in battles.

Dragon Hawk
☼ Aerial Shackles
► Becomes automatic
► Disabled by default
► Will prioritize high level air unit when auto
► Mana cost reduced from 75 to 35 mana
► Consumes 1 mana per second when active
The total mana cost / damage ratio would be the exact same, but this ability would be much more flexible & automatic.
This unit would eliminate one air unit at a time when asked for, saving more previous micro-management. However experienced players could keep the manual cast. It will surely improve this bellow-average unit without a straight stat boost, as it would otherwise makes its role too impactful.

Spellbreaker
☼ Attack type changed from missile to missile (bounce)
☼ Attack AoE increased from 0 to 200
☼ Number of targets increased from 1 to 3
☼ Attack cooldown increased from 1.9 to 2.3
☼ Damage loss factor increased from 0 to 0.5
Not changing much its average DPS, but would be much more interesting against grouped casters & summons as the feedback would target multiple enemies at a time. This would be a clever elven heritage to make the unit more coherent.

Flying machine
☼ Base damage increased from 17/6 to 34/24
☼ Number of dice increased from 1/1 to 2/2
☼ Face per dice increased from 2/2 to 4/4
☼ HP increased from 250 to 500
☼ Cost increased from 100/30/1/13 to 180/45/3/26
☼ Flak damage increased from 7/6/5 to 14/12/10
One food flying machine with very low HP, this is completely uncoherent and clogs the micro with too many units.
The power will stay the same but with better handling. This unit keeps its fast creation speed & cheap cost for its power, but can't be healed.

Paladin
☼ Holy light
► Dispels negative buffs on the friendly target
► Dispels positive buffs on the enemy target
► Adds a dispellable smitten buff to the target (positive for allies, negative for enemies)
► The friendly smitten unit have a 25% boost to heals & regens for 15 seconds
► The enemy smitten unit have a 25% reduction to heals & regens for 15 seconds
► Heal reduced from 200/400/600 to 180/360/520 (damage unchanged)
The heal flow on a same unit would be a bit increased, but now it has a more utilitarian usage if concentrated on few units.

☼ Devotion aura
► Double bonus armore to a friendly smitten unit
☼ Resurection
► Adds the smitten effect for 15s to resurected units
More synergy with an identical usage. The paladin can now better help a specific unit in battle if focused by the enemy.

Archmage
☼ Water elemental
► HP regen increased from 0.25 to 2
► Gain spell resistance
Summons would get better reliability without increasing the DPS.
Some water elementals would be less threatened by AoE spells so they can better support the archmage

☼ Brilliance aura
► Targeted mana regen cannot go above double of its base, for example
< 0.72 + 0.75 = 1.42
< 0.72 + 1.25 = 1.42
< 1.42 + 2 = 2.84
This would nerf the bonus mana on low regenrating units, but would benefit inteligence or high level friendly heroes.
Of course upgrades are taken in account, so late game would be less nerfed.

Mountain king
☼ Bash
► Has a 5s cooldown
► Revert to 1.35 balance
Less RNG

☼ Avatar
► Increases Storm bolt range by 300
► Increases Thunder clap AoE range by 100
► Increases Bash damage by 20
Player would be incited to trigger an avatar to better brawl the battlefield without sacrificing mana intended for more spells.

Blood mage
☼ Flame strike
► Mana cost reduced from 135 to 125
► Cooldown reduced from 10 to 9
► Max damage reduced from 90/160/220 to 80/140/200
► Damage per interval reduced from 15/27/37 to 13/23/33
► Un-ices affected targets
► Unfreeze buildings
Less cost for less impact, but its role as AoE is the same.
Before it was too strong on unaware adversaries.

Human buildings
☼ Keep, Castle, Altar of kings, Gryphon aviary, towers and Arcane vault sound changed from wood to stone
Because WHY BLIZZARD ?! THEY ARE FREAKIN STONE BUILDINGS

☼ Masonery upgrade
► Bonus HP reduced from 0.1/0.1/0.1 to 0.075/0.075/0.075
► Increase siege damage reduction by 0.075/0.075, to a total of 0.225
Buildings would be less of damage sponge and more like siege-proof.
Mass tower would be less countered by siege but they won't threaten too much units.

Scout tower
☼ Armor changed from air (small) to structure (normal (not medium))
This deletes its absurd weakness to pierce and magic damage

Guard & arcane tower
☼ Armor changed from basic (heavy) to structure (normal (not medium))
This deletes their absurd weakness to magic damage

Orb of fire
☼ AoE damage re-added on top of the heal reduction
☼ Heal reduction has the same AoE
☼ Also affects ranged attacks
The orb of fire had quite low effects since it's single target, here we cumulate both of its underwhelming abilities to make a versatile one.

Acolyte
☼ Summoning a building animation start cannot be interupted
This adds a bit more difficulty and removes useless micro because you can before immediately order an Acolye just after the build stats, as it would wait a bit in case of chained orders. I don't mean to interupt the build, but the acolyte has a 2s-ish animation duration when it starts the summon. It is during which it can be interupted to do another order manually.

Necromancer
☼ Raise dead
► Cost reduced from 75 to 35
► Summons (Corpse level / 2) rounded down plus one
< Level 0 : 1
< Level 1 : 1
< Level 2 : 2
< Level 3 : 2
< Level 4 : 3
< Level 5 : 3
< Level 6 : 4
< Etc
► With skeletton mage unlocked, will alternate between warrior & mage
► Each additionnal skeletton adds 40 mana cost
This would avoid skeletton spamming on tiny corpses while making good use of large ones.
The limit would stay the same, and the behaviour is unchanged for corpses level 2 and 3.

Banshee
☼ Curse
► When missing an attack from this buff, cannot miss from it again for 2 seconds
A bit less RNG

Frost Wyrm
☼ When dying, ices all enemies within 400
A bit more synergy with its ice attacks

Death knight
☼ Death coil
► Applies a coiled effect on the target for 15s (5s on enemy hero)
► The friendly coiled unit gains additionnal 5 hp/s regen on blight
► Reduces the enemy target heals by 50% (25% on enemy hero)
More defensive abilities, and can further deny an hero from other healings

☼ Unholy aura
► Friendly coiled targets gain double coil regen and aura regen
☼ Death pact
► If the target is coiled, the heal is increased by 50%
☼ Reanimation
► Targets gain 5hp/s regen and spell resistance
Even moar synergy.

Dreadlord
☼ Carrion swarm
► Sleeping enemies receive 50% more damage
☼ Vampiric aura
► 5% of carrion swarm damage is converted into healing for the dreadlord, to a maximum of 50/100/150 HP
► When the dreadlord kills an ennemy with an attack, will gain 5/10/15% of the target max HP into healing, to a maximum of 25/50/75hp
Moar synergy.

Lich
☼ Dark ritual
► Inherits the target positive buffs

Ziggurat, Spirit Tower & Nerubian tower
☼ HP increased from 600 to 700
Their high cost made them terrible as defensive buildings.
Also their HP would be more coherent with the model : a big chunky stone pyramid.

Nerubian tower
☼ Attack type changed from missile to missile (bounce)
☼ Missile do not return to the building
☼ Number of targets increased from 1 to 3
☼ Damage loss factor increased from 0 to 0.5
☼ Bounce range set to 300
☼ Attack cooldown increased from 1.3 to 2.5
Freezes more enemies at once to bring better support

Black citadel
☼ Attack type changed from missile to missile (bounce)
☼ Missile do not return to the building
☼ Number of targets increased from 1 to 3
☼ Damage loss factor increased from 0 to 0.5
☼ Bounce range set to 300
Increased defensive abilities, as it would freeze multiple units at a time & better serves as an additionnal nerubian tower
The DPS won't be astronomical too.

Pillage
☼ Increases Peon & Grunt damage against buildings by 100%
☼ Increases Raider damage against buildings by 50%
☼ Cost increased from 75/25 to 100/50
Much more use for this upgrade, so they can plunder faster but not more.
The bonus damage against normal armor buildings is a plus too, and correlate with my list of changes.

Brute strength
☼ Cost increased from 50/150 to 100/150
See bellow.

Spicked barricades
☼ Returned damage cannot exceed 10
Heavy units & heroes tend to melt away too easily.

Troll regeneration
☼ HP regen bonus increased from 1 to 1.75
Too tiny regen for trolls.

Demolisher
☼ Burning oil
► Un-ices targets & buildings

Raider
☼ Hitpoints increased from 610 to 750
☼ Affected by Brute strength
☼ Gold cost increased from 180 to 185
They feel very underwhelming.
And why an orc on a wolf would have less HP than a simple orc ?
Still threatened by melee damage, and still poor against heroes & ranged units.

Kodo beast
☼ Affected by ranged & armor upgrades
☼ Armor changed from unarmored to heavy
☼ HP increased from 1000 to 1300
More use for this unit, as it was completely melted away by ranged attacks.
Also why it is not affected by upgrades ?

Bat troll
☼ Liquid fire
► Can un-ice friendly units & buildings on attacks
Very specific bonus, helping against undead

Shaman
☼ Expiation
► Becomes auto
► Disabled by default
► Will only auto target buffed enemies
This makes it better for micro

☼ Lightning shield
► New icon because it is not coherent with orc theme

Spirit walker
☼ New death sound
This was the same as Tauren Chieftain, which could send the wrong signal amid a messy battle.

☼ Disenchant
► Mana cost reduced from 100 to 90
► Damage against summons increased from 250 to 300
More utilitarian bonuses, since it's a bigger unit less spammable than priests.

Farseer
☼ Far sight
► Passive aura on nearby allies reducing by 25/30/35% their miss chances
< It checks on a missed attack through buff or moving target
► Gets the vision of targeted units & buildings for 15 seconds when cast
► Affected units can't dodge any attacks (and their attacker can't miss too)
This makes this ability more usefull in combat & scouting, especialy against undead & nightelves

☼ Eathquake
► Affected buildings gets -4 armor during the effect
More breakthrough punch

Blade master
☼ Mirror image
► Mirror images can also cast wind walk with no extra damage
☼ Critical hit
► Doesn't cumulate with wind walk damage, will take the maximum of the two
► 5s cooldown
No longer any absurd random 500 free damage ; less RNG.
Wind walking illusions are a great plus for confusing enemies even more.

☼ Bladestorm
► Gets magic immune instead of invulnerable
► Can walk through units
► Every projectiles are bounced back to their attacker
Instead of a free damage ride, this would add a bit more risk.
However repelling enemy projectiles would be very fun and in the theme.

Tauren Chieftain
☼ Reincarnation
► When resurected will immediatly do a war stomp free of mana & reload, based on the current one if learned
More offensive synergy

Watch tower
☼ Armor changed from basic (heavy) to structure (normal (not medium))
☼ Base damage increased from 15 to 22
☼ Damage sides per dice increased from 3 to 5
☼ Attack cooldown increased from 0.6 to 0.9
☼ Missile art changed from big arrow to troll spear
Same DPS, much better coherence with the theme.
No longer gets melted down by magic attacks if not upgraded.
Rienforced defenses unchanged.

Orc Burrow
☼ Armor changed from basic (heavy) to structure (normal (not medium))

Healing salvo
☼ When expired out of combat, adds up 1 hp regen until back in combat
☼ Heals diseases and makes the unit immune to diseases while active

Orb of lightning
☼ The expiation chance has a 5s reload time
☼ Can be used as a shaman expiation with mana cost & same reload
Less RNG, more raidin' !

Nature blessing
☼ Doubles ancient root & uproot speed
More flexibility when doing ancient shenaningans

Wisp
☼ Becomes invisible if harvesting on a tree at night
☼ Receives half damage from magic & spells
More defense & less raid at night, especialy in early game

Archer
☼ The first trained archer is a Sentinel
► Based on campaign shandris
► Level 3
► If dead, the next trained archer is a Sentinel
► Not a seperate unit selection
Less weak archer in early game

☼ Elune grace
► Pierce/Magic reduction increased at night from 35/20% to 50/40%
► Description changed to reduction by 35% instead of to 65% for piercing attacks
► Description changed to reduction by 20% instead of to 80% for magic attacks
More night synergy.

Huntress
☼ The first trained huntress is a Naisha-like (haven't found a name yet)
► Based on campaign naisha
► Infinite sentinel charges with 3mn cooldown, kept at death
► +1 bounce target
Again.

☼ Moon glaive
► Sets bounce damage reduction from 0.5 to 0.4
More damage output since there's less reduction at each bounce

☼ New passive : Quick feet
► Gives a 15% evasion from ranged attacks
► 1 second reload
Increases survivability from ranged attacks, as it receive 50% more from pierce & siege.
Huntresses were very underwhelming due to their numerous weaknesses.

Glaive thrower
☼ Set attack type from artillery to artillery (line)
► Still not spilling range with no upgrades
☼ Vorpal blade
► Put back its tFT icon you bliztards
► Spill damage bonus from 0 to 400
Underused artillery so it gets a boost. More coherence too with the theme !

Dryad
☼ Also get the quick feet ability (see hunteress)
She gains a bit more survivability as a support unit

Druid of the claw
☼ HP increased from 430 to 600 in elven form
☼ HP increased from 810 to 880 in bear form
☼ Training bonus HP reduced from 75 to 40 (bear form final HP unchanged)
☼ Affected by Strength of the moon upgrades in elven form
Unupgraded druid of the claw was too damn frail for its price, plus being in the front taking damage directly.
To compensate late game the upgrade is lower, so we arrive at 680 in base form instead of 580.

Mountain giant
☼ A wisp can branch on it, giving the mountain giant +2hp/s regen while making the wisp invulnerable
More synergy to make it even more tankier, but having a wisp in a battle can give a bit more free XP on enemies if the giant dies.

☼ War club
► Doesn't expire
► Clicking it again will discard the club
More flexibility and less underused micro needed.

☼ Hardened skin
► By default unlocked
► Improved by upgrade at tier 3
► Minimum received damage isn't checked if it was bellow it
< For example receiving 2 damage won't raise it to 3
► Reduces damage by 4 to a minimum of 4
► The upgrade sets stats to the intended final level
► Upgrade cost reduced from 100/175 to 100/125
☼ Resistant skin
► By default unlocked
► No longer gets immune to some spells and reduce their duration, but still reduce their damage
► Improved by upgrade at tier 3
► The upgrade sets its effect to the intended final level
► Upgrade cost reduced from 50/100/75 to 50/75/60
► States the precise reduction in the descriptions
These would make transition a bit easier and spawning a giant or two in mid game without waiting their expensive upgrades.
The final effect is unchanged.

Druid of the talon
☼ Faerie fire
► Final armor cannot gow bellow -1
Enemy with no armor would melt away too easily

☼ Cyclone
► The affected unit is no longer invulnerable from 25% of air attacks
This means a unit in a cyclone can be attacked by air targeting attacks but will miss 75% of their shot.

☼ Storm crow form
► Cannot miss attacks against air units, even in a cyclone
More synergy with cyclone, resembling a bit a SC2 protoss phoenix and give more interest into the storm crow form

Ridden Hyppogryph
☼ Gain an ability to toggle melee attacks against air ennemies, by default disabled
No longer need to unmount hyppo to counter other heavy armor air enemies.

Chimera
☼ HP increased from 1000 to 1100
☼ Cost reduced from 330/70 to 305/70
☼ Corrosive breath
► Fix its damage effect as it curently doesn't trigger
► Damage per second reduced from 50 to 10
► Reduce building armor by 3 during the effect
More interest as a breakthrough unit, as the chimera is a bellow average unit right now.
Making it cheaper helps the transition.

Priestress of the moon
☼ Owl scout
► Units seen by the owl give their vision to the player for 15 seconds and they are revealed for the same duration
► Friendly units cannot miss their attack against seen enemies
☼ Trueshot aura
► Ranged damage bonus reduced from 10/20/30% to 10/15/20%
► Increases friendly ranged range by 4/8/12%
► Reduces friendly miss chances by 10/20/30%
More synergy with evasion & miss. Owl scout can have an indirect bonus in battle.

☼ Starfall
► When a target is hit 5 times by starfall, the next ones arrives every 3s instead of 1.5s for it
Reduces the long term damage potential but still threatens dynamic battles by at least dealing 250 damage within 9 seconds.

Keeper of the groove
☼ Force of nature
► Regrows dead trees if no alive trees are targeted
► Treants
< Base damage increased from 14/14/14 to 14/16/18
< Hitpoints increased from 300/300/300 to 300/350/400
More use in late game instead of being free XP pathblockers, as now it can seal tree paths.

☼ Thorn aura
► Also affects friendly rooted and uprooted ancients
► Friendly treant and ancient gains +15% effect (30/45/60%) from the aura

Tranquility
☼ Heals diseases

Demon hunter
☼ Mana burn
► Also dispells buffs on the target
► Each dispelled buffs adds +25 mana burn

☼ Evasion
► 0.5 second cooldown
Less RNG when focused

Warden
☼ Vengeance
► Base damage increased from 24 to 34
► HP increased from 1200 to 1300
► The Avatar and the spirits gain +50% damage against heroes
► The Avatar and the spirits get the current blink of the warden
This underused ability would be more interesting, and can also follow the warden to better track down enemy heroes

Root / Uproot
☼ Uprooted ancients armor changed from heavy (basic) to structure (normal (not medium))
Melted too easily by magic attacks.

Tree of life
☼ Entangle
► Can manually entangle multiple goldmines from the same rooted tree of life
► Only automaticaly targets the nearest mine if none is entangled
A bit more flexibility on some maps & custom where you have multiple goldmine in the same base

Chimera Roost
☼ Cost reduced from 140/190/80 to 140/150/75
Much more alike gryphon aviaries in terms of costs, and makes underused chimeras a bit more easier to transition to.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

Well, I shall dump all the changes I want into Warcraft 3 Melee. It will include some QoL features, however before reading it, understand these following points :
☼ They are initial suggestions that might be subjected to evolve through testing
☼ They are intended to modernize some aspects of the game
☼ I am not a professional nor a regular competitive melee player
☼ I have the bias of making a lot of custom factions
☼ I don't take in account how the objects changes in the map editor (else it would be out of topic), I just focus on the in game behaviors
☼ I don't take in account here my editor-only suggestions (idem)
☼ Suggestions in red are quite experimental and could be canceled if it is too much
☼ When not mentionned, default values & behaviors are still present and unchanged
☼ I might change some details anytime, so don't be surprised if I changed my mind on something.

Are ya ready ? Good ! This post will be in 5 parts : one general and one per race.

General

Human

Undead

Orc

Night elves

☼ Pathing algorithm improved to dynamically scale with the number of player units
☼ Selection size increased to 24
☼ Between 13 and 18 units selected, 3 lines are shown
☼ Between 19 and 24 units selected, 4 lines are shown
☼ Formation pathing size separated from pathing size
☼ Default formation pathing size set to 32 (specific cases are intentionally omitted in this list)
☼ Formations have now 4 modes, spacing the units within differently
► Scaled to largest (as default vanilla)
► No formation (as default vanillaà
► Scaled to smallest (if too tight for big units, will scale on the big unit pathing size)
► Scaled to average (per unit, not per type)
These QoL would completely improve Warcraft 3 handling, even on custom maps. Formations would be much more consistent without forcing players to change their previous habits. Light air units would no longer stack in tight formations, as big units won't enlarge too much the formation.

☼ Unit UI Grid scales with the highest XY coordinate, maximum 6x6, default 4x3 (like vanilla)
☼ Option to hide unit commands
☼ Option to change unit and building icons team colored for the player, affected by allied colors, when applicable (like in Warcraft 2)
☼ Snow player minimap color has black borders
☼ Coal player minimap color has white borders
More QoL here, having impact to custom maps but again not changing player habits. It would let some buildings & shops much more breathing room.

☼ Bouncing attacks will return to the owner when finished

☼ Resurecting a hero through a Tavern cannot be resurected again in a tavern for 60 seconds

☼ Normal (not medium) armor gets a unique icon and description "No particular resistances or weaknesses".

Pandaren brewmaster
☼ Drunken brawler
► Evasion has a 0.5s cooldown
► Critical hit has a 5s cooldown
Less RNG.

Fragmentation shards
☼ Gains a more explicit visual effect

Peasant
☼ Militia ability
► Duration reduced from 45 to 10
► Expiration is frozen as long as the militia is within 2000 of a player owned town center
► Expiration reset to 10 every time the militia attacks a non-peon non building unit
► Militia HP increased from 240 to 275
Militia creeping would be nerfed, returning to its initial intent of defensive trump card.
Peasant tower rushing would be also nerfed as it would quickly return to peasant once outside of its called town center.
To compensate, they can stay indefinitely while in combat and/or defending the base, with some extra HP to leave more flexibility against early hero abilities.

Footman
☼ The first trained footman is a captain
☼ If the captain dies, the next trained footman becomes a captain
► Based on campaign captain
► Level 3
► 2 food cost
► Counted in the footman group (not a seperate type)
☼ Defend
► Deflection has a 1s cooldown
Early footmen would be a bit more interesting since you also get a captain by default. This introduces the captain system into the game.
While defend makes footies very reliable against early to mid ranged units, it would sometimes add too much intended DPS against mass ranged.

Priest
☼ Gains double damage against undead units
Logic, and a bit more DPS helps against undead machups

Siege engine
☼ Secondary attack
► Damage increased from 16 to 29
► Number of dices increased from 1 to 2
► Sides per dice increased from 2 to 4
► Reload time increased from 2 to 3 seconds
☼ Barrage
► Number of target reduced from 10 to 5
► Based on Siege engine secondary damage insead of a fix 25
► No longer replaces its main attack projectile art
► Deal pierce damage instead of spell (need to verify that)
Siege engine would get a higher punch against air units when they are fewer, and the same DPS in large numbers.
Rockets would have a much more coherent aesthetic since it obviously deals more damage as an arrow.
In Tier 3 that moves from 125 fix DPS to to 5x 34-49 every 3s, which is 139DPS.
However the damage would be less consistent when facing great hosts of flyers.
Adding one or two of these in a party would clearly add a good anti-air in late game, however it won't be as impactfull as mass riflemen.
Less projectiles also means more clarity in battles.

Dragon Hawk
☼ Aerial Shackles
► Becomes automatic
► Disabled by default
► Will prioritize high level air unit when auto
► Mana cost reduced from 75 to 35 mana
► Consumes 1 mana per second when active
The total mana cost / damage ratio would be the exact same, but this ability would be much more flexible & automatic.
This unit would eliminate one air unit at a time when asked for, saving more previous micro-management. However experienced players could keep the manual cast. It will surely improve this bellow-average unit without a straight stat boost, as it would otherwise makes its role too impactful.

Spellbreaker
☼ Attack type changed from missile to missile (bounce)
☼ Attack AoE increased from 0 to 200
☼ Number of targets increased from 1 to 3
☼ Attack cooldown increased from 1.9 to 2.3
☼ Damage loss factor increased from 0 to 0.5
Not changing much its average DPS, but would be much more interesting against grouped casters & summons as the feedback would target multiple enemies at a time. This would be a clever elven heritage to make the unit more coherent.

Paladin
☼ Holy light
► Dispels negative buffs on the friendly target
► Dispels positive buffs on the enemy target
► Adds a dispellable smitten buff to the target (positive for allies, negative for enemies)
► The friendly smitten unit have a 25% boost to heals & regens for 15 seconds
► The enemy smitten unit have a 25% reduction to heals & regens for 15 seconds
► Heal reduced from 200/400/600 to 180/360/520 (damage unchanged)
The heal flow on a same unit would be a bit increased, but now it has a more utilitarian usage if concentrated on few units.

☼ Devotion aura
► Double bonus armore to a friendly smitten unit
☼ Resurection
► Adds the smitten effect for 15s to resurected units
More synergy with an identical usage. The paladin can now better help a specific unit in battle if focused by the enemy.

Archmage
☼ Water elemental
► HP regen increased from 0.25 to 2
► Gain spell resistance
Summons would get better reliability without increasing the DPS.
Some water elementals would be less threatened by AoE spells so they can better support the archmage

☼ Brilliance aura
► Targeted mana regen cannot go above double of its base, for example
< 0.72 + 0.75 = 1.42
< 0.72 + 1.25 = 1.42
< 1.42 + 2 = 2.84
This would nerf the bonus mana on low regenrating units, but would benefit inteligence or high level friendly heroes.
Of course upgrades are taken in account, so late game would be less nerfed.

Mountain king
☼ Bash
► Has a 5s cooldown
► Revert to 1.35 balance
Less RNG

☼ Avatar
► Increases Storm bolt range by 300
► Increases Thunder clap AoE range by 100
► Increases Bash damage by 20
Player would be incited to trigger an avatar to better brawl the battlefield without sacrificing mana intended for more spells.

Blood mage
☼ Flame strike
► Mana cost reduced from 135 to 125
► Cooldown reduced from 10 to 9
► Max damage reduced from 90/160/220 to 80/140/200
► Damage per interval reduced from 15/27/37 to 13/23/33
► Un-ices affected targets
► Unfreeze buildings
Less cost for less impact, but its role as AoE is the same.
Before it was too strong on unaware adversaries.

Human buildings
☼ Keep, Castle, Altar of kings, Gryphon aviary, towers and Arcane vault sound changed from wood to stone
Because WHY BLIZZARD ?! THEY ARE FREAKIN STONE BUILDINGS

☼ Masonery upgrade
► Bonus HP reduced from 0.1/0.1 to 0.075/0.075
► Increase siege damage reduction by 0.1/0.1, to a total of 0.2
Buildings would be less of damage sponge and more like siege-proof.
Mass tower would be less countered by siege but they won't threaten too much units.

Scout tower
☼ Armor changed from small to normal (not medium)
This deletes its absurd weakness to pierce and magic damage

Guard tower
☼ Armor changed from heavy to normal (not medium)
This deletes its absurd weakness to magic damage

Orb of fire
☼ AoE damage re-added on top of the heal reduction
☼ Heal reduction has the same AoE
☼ Also affects ranged attacks
The orb of fire had quite low effects since it's single target, here we cumulate both of its underwhelming abilities to make a versatile one.

Acolyte
☼ Summoning a building animation start cannot be interupted
This adds a bit more difficult and removes useless micro because you can before immediately order an Acolye just after the build stats, as it would wait a bit in case of chained orders. I don't mean to interupt the build, but the acolyte has a 2s-ish animation duration when it starts the summon. It is during which it can be interupted to do another order manually.

Necromancer
☼ Raise dead
► Cost reduced from 75 to 35
► Summons (Corpse level / 2) rounded down plus one
< Level 0 : 1
< Level 1 : 1
< Level 2 : 2
< Level 3 : 2
< Level 4 : 3
< Level 5 : 3
< Level 6 : 4
< Etc
► With skeletton mage unlocked, will alternate between warrior & mage
► Each additionnal skeletton adds 40 mana cost
This would avoid skeletton spamming on tiny corpses while making good use of large ones.
The limit would stay the same, and the behaviour is unchanged for corpses level 2 and 3.

Banshee
☼ Curse
► When missing an attack from this buff, cannot miss from it again for 2 seconds
A bit less RNG

Frost Wyrm
☼ When dying, ices all enemies within 400
A bit more synergy with its ice attacks

Death knight
☼ Death coil
► Applies a coiled effect on the target for 15s (5s on enemy hero)
► The friendly coiled unit gains additionnal 5 hp/s regen on blight
► Reduces the enemy target heals by 50% (25% on enemy hero)
More defensive abilities, and can further deny an hero from other healings

☼ Unholy aura
► Friendly coiled targets gain double coil regen and aura regen
☼ Death pact
► If the target is coiled, the heal is increased by 50%
☼ Reanimation
► Targets gain 5hp/s regen and spell resistance
Even moar synergy.

Dreadlord
☼ Carrion swarm
► Sleeping enemies receive 50% more damage
☼ Vampiric aura
► 5% of carrion swarm damage is converted into healing for the dreadlord, to a maximum of 50/100/150 HP
► When the dreadlord kills an ennemy with an attack, will gain 5/10/15% of the target max HP into healing, to a maximum of 25/50/75hp
Moar synergy.

Lich
☼ Dark ritual
► Inherits the target positive buffs

Ziggurat, Spirit Tower & Nerubian tower
☼ HP increased from 600 to 700
Their high cost made them terrible as defensive buildings.
Also their HP would be more coherent with the model : a big chunky stone pyramid.

Nerubian tower
☼ Attack type changed from missile to missile (bounce)
☼ Missile do not return to the building
☼ Number of targets increased from 1 to 3
☼ Damage loss factor increased from 0 to 0.5
☼ Bounce range set to 300
☼ Attack cooldown increased from 1.3 to 2.5
Freezes more enemies at once to bring better support

Black citadel
☼ Attack type changed from missile to missile (bounce)
☼ Missile do not return to the building
☼ Number of targets increased from 1 to 3
☼ Damage loss factor increased from 0 to 0.5
☼ Bounce range set to 300
Increased defensive abilities, as it would freeze multiple units at a time & better serves as an additionnal nerubian tower
The DPS won't be astronomical too.

Pillage
☼ Increases Peon & Grunt damage against buildings by 100%
☼ Increases Raider damage against buildings by 50%
Much more use for this upgrade, so they can plunder more and faster.
The bonus damage against normal armor buildings is a plus too, and correlate with my list of changes.

Brute strength
☼ Cost increased from 50/150 to 100/150
See bellow.

Spicked barricades
☼ Returned damage cannot exceed 10
Heavy units & heroes tend to melt away too easily.

Troll regeneration
☼ HP regen bonus increased from 1 to 1.75
Too tiny regen for trolls.

Demolisher
☼ Burning oil
► Un-ices targets & buildings

Raider
☼ Hitpoints increased from 610 to 750
☼ Affected by Brute strength
☼ Gold cost increased from 180 to 185
They feel very underwhelming.
And why an orc on a wolf would have less HP than a simple orc ?
Still threatened by melee damage, and still poor against heroes & ranged units.

Kodo beast
☼ Affected by ranged & armor upgrades
☼ Armor changed from unarmored to heavy
☼ HP increased from 1000 to 1300
More use for this unit, as it was completely melted away by ranged attacks.
Also why it is not affected by upgrades ?

Bat troll
☼ Liquid fire
► Can un-ice friendly units & buildings on attacks
Very specific bonus, helping against undead

Shaman
☼ Expiation
► Becomes auto
► Disabled by default
► Will only auto target buffed enemies
This makes it better for micro

☼ Lightning shield
► New icon because it is not coherent with orc theme

Spirit walker
☼ New death sound
This was the same as Tauren Chieftain, which could send the wrong signal amid a messy battle.

☼ Disenchant
► Mana cost reduced from 100 to 90
► Damage against summons increased from 250 to 300
More utilitarian bonuses, since it's a bigger unit less spammable than priests.

Farseer
☼ Far sight
► Passive aura on nearby allies reducing by 25/30/35% their miss chances
< It checks on a missed attack through buff or moving target
► Gets the vision of targeted units & buildings for 15 seconds when cast
► Affected units can't dodge any attacks (and their attacker can't miss too)
This makes this ability more usefull in combat & scouting, especialy against undead & nightelves

☼ Eathquake
► Affected buildings gets -4 armor during the effect
More breakthrough punch

Blade master
☼ Mirror image
► Mirror images can also cast wind walk with no extra damage
☼ Critical hit
► Doesn't cumulate with wind walk damage, will take the maximum of the two
► 5s cooldown
No longer any absurd random 500 free damage ; less RNG.
Wind walking illusions are a great plus for confusing enemies even more.

☼ Bladestorm
► Gets magic imune instead of invulnerable
► Can walk through units
► Every projectiles are bounced back to their attacker
Instead of a free damage ride, this would add a bit more risk.
However repelling enemy projectiles would be very fun and in the theme.

Tauren Chieftain
☼ Reincarnation
► When resurected will immediatly do a war stomp free of mana & reload, based on the current one if learned
More offensive synergy

Watch tower
☼ Armor changed from Heavy to normal (not medium)
☼ Base damage increased from 15 to 22
☼ Damage sides per dice increased from 3 to 5
☼ Attack cooldown increased from 0.6 to 0.9
☼ Missile art changed from big arrow to troll spear
Same DPS, much better coherence with the theme.
No longer gets melted down by magic attacks if not upgraded.
Rienforced defenses unchanged.

Orc Burrow
☼ Armor changed from heaby to normal (not medium)

Healing salvo
☼ When expired out of combat, adds up 1 hp regen until back in combat
☼ Heals diseases and makes the unit immune to diseases while active

Orb of lightning
☼ The expiation chance has a 5s reload time
☼ Can be used as a shaman expiation with mana cost & same reload
Less RNG, more raidin' !

Nature blessing
☼ Doubles ancient root & uproot speed
More flexibility when doing ancient shenaningans

Wisp
☼ Becomes invisible if harvesting on a tree at night
☼ Receives half damage from magic & spells
More defense & less raid at night, especialy in early game

Archer
☼ The first trained archer is a Sentinel
► Based on campaign shandris
► Level 3
► If dead, the next trained archer is a Sentinel
► Not a seperate unit selection
Less weak archer in early game

☼ Elune grace
► Pierce/Magic reduction increased at night from 35/20% to 50/40%
► Description changed to reduction by 35% instead of to 65% for piercing attacks
► Description changed to reduction by 20% instead of to 80% for magic attacks
More night synergy.

Huntress
☼ The first trained huntress is a Naisha-like (haven't found a name yet)
► Based on campaign naisha
► Infinite sentinel charges with 3mn cooldown, kept at death
► +1 bounce target
Again.

☼ Moon glaive
► Sets bounce damage reduction from 0.5 to 0.4
More damage output since there's less reduction at each bounce

☼ New passive : Quick feet
► Gives a 15% evasion from ranged attacks
► 1 second reload
Increases survivability from ranged attacks, as it receive 50% more from pierce & siege.
Huntresses were very underwhelming due to their numerous weaknesses.

Glaive thrower
☼ Set attack type from artillery to artillery (line)
► Still not spilling range with no upgrades
☼ Vorpal blade
► Put back its tFT icon you bliztards
► Spill damage bonus from 0 to 400
Underused artillery so it gets a boost. More coherence too with the theme !

Dryad
☼ Also get the quick feet ability (see hunteress)
She gains a bit more survivability as a support unit

Druid of the claw
☼ HP increased from 430 to 600 in elven form
☼ HP increased from 810 to 880 in bear form
☼ Training bonus HP reduced from 75 to 40 (bear form final HP unchanged)
☼ Affected by Strength of the moon upgrades in elven form
Unupgraded druid of the claw was too damn frail for its price, plus being in the front taking damage directly.
To compensate late game the upgrade is lower, so we arrive at 680 in base form instead of 580.

Mountain giant
☼ A wisp can branch on it, giving the mountain giant +2hp/s regen while making the wisp invulnerable
More synergy to make it even more tankier, but having a wisp in a battle can give a bit more free XP on enemies if the giant dies.

☼ War club
► Doesn't expire
► Clicking it again will discard the club
More flexibility and less underused micro needed.

☼ Hardened skin
► By default unlocked
► Improved by upgrade at tier 3
► Minimum received damage isn't checked if it was bellow it
< For example receiving 2 damage won't raise it to 3
► Reduces damage by 4 to a minimum of 4
► The upgrade sets stats to the intended final level
► Upgrade cost reduced from 100/175 to 100/125
☼ Resistant skin
► By default unlocked
► No longer gets immune to some spells and reduce their duration, but still reduce their damage
► Improved by upgrade at tier 3
► The upgrade sets its effect to the intended final level
► Upgrade cost reduced from 50/100/75 to 50/75/60
► States the precise reduction in the descriptions
These would make transition a bit easier and spawning a giant or two in mid game without waiting their expensive upgrades.
The final effect is unchanged.

Druid of the talon
☼ Faerie fire
► Final armor cannot gow bellow -1
Enemy with no armor would melt away too easily

☼ Cyclone
► The affected unit is no longer invulnerable from 25% of air attacks
This means a unit in a cyclone can be attacked by air targeting attacks but will miss 75% of their shot.

☼ Storm crow form
► Cannot miss attacks against air units, even in a cyclone
More synergy with cyclone, resembling a bit a SC2 protoss phoenix and give more interest into the storm crow form

Ridden Hyppogryph
☼ Gain an ability to toggle melee attacks against air ennemies, by default disabled
No longer need to unmount hyppo to counter other heavy armor air enemies.

Chimera
☼ HP increased from 1000 to 1100
☼ Cost reduced from 330/70 to 305/70
☼ Corrosive breath
► Fix its damage effect as it curently doesn't trigger
► Damage per second reduced from 50 to 10
► Reduce building armor by 3 during the effect
More interest as a breakthrough unit, as the chimera is a bellow average unit right now.
Making it cheaper helps the transition.

Priestress of the moon
☼ Owl scout
► Units seen by the owl give their vision to the player for 15 seconds and they are revealed for the same duration
► Friendly units cannot miss their attack against seen enemies
☼ Trueshot aura
► Ranged damage bonus reduced from 10/20/30% to 10/15/20%
► Increases friendly ranged range by 4/8/12%
► Reduces friendly miss chances by 10/20/30%
More synergy with evasion & miss. Owl scout can have an indirect bonus in battle.

☼ Starfall
► When a target is hit 5 times by starfall, the next ones arrives every 3s instead of 1.5s for it
Reduces the long term damage potential but still threatens dynamic battles by at least dealing 250 damage within 9 seconds.

Keeper of the groove
☼ Force of nature
► Regrows dead trees if no alive trees are targeted
► Treants
< Base damage increased from 14/14/14 to 14/16/18
< Hitpoints increased from 300/300/300 to 300/350/400
More use in late game instead of being free XP pathblockers, as now it can seal tree paths.

☼ Thorn aura
► Also affects friendly rooted and uprooted ancients
► Friendly treant and ancient gains +15% effect (30/45/60%) from the aura

Tranquility
☼ Heals diseases

Demon hunter
☼ Mana burn
► Also dispells buffs on the target
► Each dispelled buffs adds +25 mana burn

☼ Evasion
► 0.5 second cooldown
Less RNG when focused

Warden
☼ Vengeance
► Base damage increased from 24 to 34
► HP increased from 1200 to 1300
► The Avatar and the spirits gain +50% damage against heroes
► The Avatar and the spirits get the current blink of the warden
This underused ability would be more interesting, and can also follow the warden to better track down enemy heroes

Root / Uproot
☼ Uprooted ancients armor changed from heavy to normal (not medium) armor
Melted too easily by magic attacks.

Tree of life
☼ Entangle
► Can manually entangle multiple goldmines from the same rooted tree of life
► Only automaticaly targets the nearest mine if none is entangled
A bit more flexibility on some maps & custom where you have multiple goldmine in the same base

Chimera Roost
☼ Cost reduced from 140/190/80 to 140/150/75
Much more alike gryphon aviaries in terms of costs, and makes underused chimeras a bit more easier to transition to.

oh wow what an interesting list of changes , the "captain unit" concept seems cool would like to see it in the game , the raider hp trulu confused me too why he has less HP than a grunt? personally i changed him to be a tier 2 melee unit having 800 base hp effected by brute str and +3 dmg he now kinda bridges the gap between the tier 1 melee and tier 3 melee , for the huntress i agree she is "an elite cadre" yet dies from projectiles throwing enemies what i did was give her a much more nerfed elune grace she takes as much dmg from pierce as heavy armor units , about the POTM wouldnt a stat change help her a bit? i mean she is a warrior priestess but stat-wise is more of a spell caster than a "warrior" but great list

 

[Bleeq]

I dont think DK needs buffs tbh.

Similarly, I dont think Mountain Giants need to be even tankier.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

I dont think DK needs buffs tbh.

Similarly, I dont think Mountain Giants need to be even tankier.

DK could use+25 HP to boost his durability as he is always focused at when in fights i agree with the MG one

 

[deepstrasz]

I think it would be cool to have an AI based program that can actually test these ideas and get some meaningful results otherwise it's pretty much just talk.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

I think it would be cool to have an AI based program that can actually test these ideas and get some meaningful results otherwise it's pretty much just talk.

absolutely

 

[raypack]

Well, I shall dump all the changes I want into Warcraft 3 Melee. It will include some QoL features, however before reading it, understand these following points :
☼ They are initial suggestions that might be subjected to evolve through testing
☼ They are intended to modernize some aspects of the game
☼ I am not a professional nor a regular competitive melee player
☼ I have the bias of making a lot of custom factions
☼ I don't take in account how the objects changes in the map editor (else it would be out of topic), I just focus on the in game behaviors
☼ I don't take in account here my editor-only suggestions (idem)
☼ Suggestions in red are quite experimental and could be canceled if it is too much
☼ When not mentionned, default values & behaviors are still present and unchanged
☼ I might change some details anytime, so don't be surprised if I changed my mind on something.

Are ya ready ? Good ! This post will be in 5 parts : one general and one per race.

General

Human

Undead

Orc

Night elves

☼ Pathing algorithm improved to dynamically scale with the number of player units
☼ Selection size increased to 24
☼ Between 13 and 18 units selected, 3 lines are shown
☼ Between 19 and 24 units selected, 4 lines are shown
☼ Formation pathing size separated from pathing size
☼ Default formation pathing size set to 32 (specific cases are intentionally omitted in this list)
☼ Formations have now 4 modes, spacing the units within differently
► Scaled to largest (as default vanilla)
► No formation (as default vanillaà
► Scaled to smallest (if too tight for big units, will scale on the big unit pathing size)
► Scaled to average (per unit, not per type)
These QoL would completely improve Warcraft 3 handling, even on custom maps. Formations would be much more consistent without forcing players to change their previous habits. Light air units would no longer stack in tight formations, as big units won't enlarge too much the formation.

☼ Unit UI Grid scales with the highest XY coordinate, maximum 6x6, default 4x3 (like vanilla)
☼ Option to hide unit commands
☼ Option to change unit and building icons team colored for the player, affected by allied colors, when applicable (like in Warcraft 2)
☼ Snow player minimap color has black borders
☼ Coal player minimap color has white borders
More QoL here, having impact to custom maps but again not changing player habits. It would let some buildings & shops much more breathing room.

☼ Bouncing attacks will return to the owner when finished

☼ Resurecting a hero through a Tavern cannot be resurected again in a tavern for 60 seconds

☼ Normal (not medium) armor gets a unique icon and description "No particular resistances or weaknesses".

Pandaren brewmaster
☼ Drunken brawler
► Evasion has a 0.5s cooldown
► Critical hit has a 5s cooldown
Less RNG.

Fragmentation shards
☼ Gains a more explicit visual effect

Peasant
☼ Militia ability
► Duration reduced from 45 to 10
► Expiration is frozen as long as the militia is within 2000 of a player owned town center
► Expiration reset to 10 every time the militia attacks an enemy non-peon non-ancient unit
► Militia HP increased from 240 to 275
Militia creeping would be nerfed, returning to its initial intent of defensive trump card.
Peasant tower rushing would be also nerfed as it would quickly return to peasant once outside of its called town center.
To compensate, they can stay indefinitely while in combat and/or defending the base, with some extra HP to leave more flexibility against early hero abilities.

Footman
☼ The first trained footman is a captain
☼ If the captain dies, the next trained footman becomes a captain
► Based on campaign captain
► Level 3
► 2 food cost
► Counted in the footman group (not a seperate type)
☼ Defend
► Deflection has a 1s cooldown
Early footmen would be a bit more interesting since you also get a captain by default. This introduces the captain system into the game.
While defend makes footies very reliable against early to mid ranged units, it would sometimes add too much intended DPS against mass ranged.

Priest
☼ Gains double damage against undead units
Logic, and a bit more DPS helps against undead machups

Siege engine
☼ Secondary attack
► Damage increased from 16 to 29
► Number of dices increased from 1 to 2
► Sides per dice increased from 2 to 4
► Reload time increased from 2 to 3 seconds
☼ Barrage
► Number of target reduced from 10 to 5
► Based on Siege engine secondary damage insead of a fix 25
► No longer replaces its main attack projectile art
► Deal pierce damage instead of spell (need to verify that)
Siege engine would get a higher punch against air units when they are fewer, and the same DPS in large numbers.
Rockets would have a much more coherent aesthetic since it obviously deals more damage as an arrow.
In Tier 3 that moves from 125 fix DPS to to 5x 34-49 every 3s, which is 139DPS.
However the damage would be less consistent when facing great hosts of flyers.
Adding one or two of these in a party would clearly add a good anti-air in late game, however it won't be as impactfull as mass riflemen.
Less projectiles also means more clarity in battles.

Dragon Hawk
☼ Aerial Shackles
► Becomes automatic
► Disabled by default
► Will prioritize high level air unit when auto
► Mana cost reduced from 75 to 35 mana
► Consumes 1 mana per second when active
The total mana cost / damage ratio would be the exact same, but this ability would be much more flexible & automatic.
This unit would eliminate one air unit at a time when asked for, saving more previous micro-management. However experienced players could keep the manual cast. It will surely improve this bellow-average unit without a straight stat boost, as it would otherwise makes its role too impactful.

Spellbreaker
☼ Attack type changed from missile to missile (bounce)
☼ Attack AoE increased from 0 to 200
☼ Number of targets increased from 1 to 3
☼ Attack cooldown increased from 1.9 to 2.3
☼ Damage loss factor increased from 0 to 0.5
Not changing much its average DPS, but would be much more interesting against grouped casters & summons as the feedback would target multiple enemies at a time. This would be a clever elven heritage to make the unit more coherent.

Paladin
☼ Holy light
► Dispels negative buffs on the friendly target
► Dispels positive buffs on the enemy target
► Adds a dispellable smitten buff to the target (positive for allies, negative for enemies)
► The friendly smitten unit have a 25% boost to heals & regens for 15 seconds
► The enemy smitten unit have a 25% reduction to heals & regens for 15 seconds
► Heal reduced from 200/400/600 to 180/360/520 (damage unchanged)
The heal flow on a same unit would be a bit increased, but now it has a more utilitarian usage if concentrated on few units.

☼ Devotion aura
► Double bonus armore to a friendly smitten unit
☼ Resurection
► Adds the smitten effect for 15s to resurected units
More synergy with an identical usage. The paladin can now better help a specific unit in battle if focused by the enemy.

Archmage
☼ Water elemental
► HP regen increased from 0.25 to 2
► Gain spell resistance
Summons would get better reliability without increasing the DPS.
Some water elementals would be less threatened by AoE spells so they can better support the archmage

☼ Brilliance aura
► Targeted mana regen cannot go above double of its base, for example
< 0.72 + 0.75 = 1.42
< 0.72 + 1.25 = 1.42
< 1.42 + 2 = 2.84
This would nerf the bonus mana on low regenrating units, but would benefit inteligence or high level friendly heroes.
Of course upgrades are taken in account, so late game would be less nerfed.

Mountain king
☼ Bash
► Has a 5s cooldown
► Revert to 1.35 balance
Less RNG

☼ Avatar
► Increases Storm bolt range by 300
► Increases Thunder clap AoE range by 100
► Increases Bash damage by 20
Player would be incited to trigger an avatar to better brawl the battlefield without sacrificing mana intended for more spells.

Blood mage
☼ Flame strike
► Mana cost reduced from 135 to 125
► Cooldown reduced from 10 to 9
► Max damage reduced from 90/160/220 to 80/140/200
► Damage per interval reduced from 15/27/37 to 13/23/33
► Un-ices affected targets
► Unfreeze buildings
Less cost for less impact, but its role as AoE is the same.
Before it was too strong on unaware adversaries.

Human buildings
☼ Keep, Castle, Altar of kings, Gryphon aviary, towers and Arcane vault sound changed from wood to stone
Because WHY BLIZZARD ?! THEY ARE FREAKIN STONE BUILDINGS

☼ Masonery upgrade
► Bonus HP reduced from 0.1/0.1 to 0.075/0.075
► Increase siege damage reduction by 0.1/0.1, to a total of 0.2
Buildings would be less of damage sponge and more like siege-proof.
Mass tower would be less countered by siege but they won't threaten too much units.

Scout tower
☼ Armor changed from small to normal (not medium)
This deletes its absurd weakness to pierce and magic damage

Guard tower
☼ Armor changed from heavy to normal (not medium)
This deletes its absurd weakness to magic damage

Orb of fire
☼ AoE damage re-added on top of the heal reduction
☼ Heal reduction has the same AoE
☼ Also affects ranged attacks
The orb of fire had quite low effects since it's single target, here we cumulate both of its underwhelming abilities to make a versatile one.

Acolyte
☼ Summoning a building animation start cannot be interupted
This adds a bit more difficulty and removes useless micro because you can before immediately order an Acolye just after the build stats, as it would wait a bit in case of chained orders. I don't mean to interupt the build, but the acolyte has a 2s-ish animation duration when it starts the summon. It is during which it can be interupted to do another order manually.

Necromancer
☼ Raise dead
► Cost reduced from 75 to 35
► Summons (Corpse level / 2) rounded down plus one
< Level 0 : 1
< Level 1 : 1
< Level 2 : 2
< Level 3 : 2
< Level 4 : 3
< Level 5 : 3
< Level 6 : 4
< Etc
► With skeletton mage unlocked, will alternate between warrior & mage
► Each additionnal skeletton adds 40 mana cost
This would avoid skeletton spamming on tiny corpses while making good use of large ones.
The limit would stay the same, and the behaviour is unchanged for corpses level 2 and 3.

Banshee
☼ Curse
► When missing an attack from this buff, cannot miss from it again for 2 seconds
A bit less RNG

Frost Wyrm
☼ When dying, ices all enemies within 400
A bit more synergy with its ice attacks

Death knight
☼ Death coil
► Applies a coiled effect on the target for 15s (5s on enemy hero)
► The friendly coiled unit gains additionnal 5 hp/s regen on blight
► Reduces the enemy target heals by 50% (25% on enemy hero)
More defensive abilities, and can further deny an hero from other healings

☼ Unholy aura
► Friendly coiled targets gain double coil regen and aura regen
☼ Death pact
► If the target is coiled, the heal is increased by 50%
☼ Reanimation
► Targets gain 5hp/s regen and spell resistance
Even moar synergy.

Dreadlord
☼ Carrion swarm
► Sleeping enemies receive 50% more damage
☼ Vampiric aura
► 5% of carrion swarm damage is converted into healing for the dreadlord, to a maximum of 50/100/150 HP
► When the dreadlord kills an ennemy with an attack, will gain 5/10/15% of the target max HP into healing, to a maximum of 25/50/75hp
Moar synergy.

Lich
☼ Dark ritual
► Inherits the target positive buffs

Ziggurat, Spirit Tower & Nerubian tower
☼ HP increased from 600 to 700
Their high cost made them terrible as defensive buildings.
Also their HP would be more coherent with the model : a big chunky stone pyramid.

Nerubian tower
☼ Attack type changed from missile to missile (bounce)
☼ Missile do not return to the building
☼ Number of targets increased from 1 to 3
☼ Damage loss factor increased from 0 to 0.5
☼ Bounce range set to 300
☼ Attack cooldown increased from 1.3 to 2.5
Freezes more enemies at once to bring better support

Black citadel
☼ Attack type changed from missile to missile (bounce)
☼ Missile do not return to the building
☼ Number of targets increased from 1 to 3
☼ Damage loss factor increased from 0 to 0.5
☼ Bounce range set to 300
Increased defensive abilities, as it would freeze multiple units at a time & better serves as an additionnal nerubian tower
The DPS won't be astronomical too.

Pillage
☼ Increases Peon & Grunt damage against buildings by 100%
☼ Increases Raider damage against buildings by 50%
☼ Cost increased from 75/25 to 100/50
Much more use for this upgrade, so they can plunder faster but not more.
The bonus damage against normal armor buildings is a plus too, and correlate with my list of changes.

Brute strength
☼ Cost increased from 50/150 to 100/150
See bellow.

Spicked barricades
☼ Returned damage cannot exceed 10
Heavy units & heroes tend to melt away too easily.

Troll regeneration
☼ HP regen bonus increased from 1 to 1.75
Too tiny regen for trolls.

Demolisher
☼ Burning oil
► Un-ices targets & buildings

Raider
☼ Hitpoints increased from 610 to 750
☼ Affected by Brute strength
☼ Gold cost increased from 180 to 185
They feel very underwhelming.
And why an orc on a wolf would have less HP than a simple orc ?
Still threatened by melee damage, and still poor against heroes & ranged units.

Kodo beast
☼ Affected by ranged & armor upgrades
☼ Armor changed from unarmored to heavy
☼ HP increased from 1000 to 1300
More use for this unit, as it was completely melted away by ranged attacks.
Also why it is not affected by upgrades ?

Bat troll
☼ Liquid fire
► Can un-ice friendly units & buildings on attacks
Very specific bonus, helping against undead

Shaman
☼ Expiation
► Becomes auto
► Disabled by default
► Will only auto target buffed enemies
This makes it better for micro

☼ Lightning shield
► New icon because it is not coherent with orc theme

Spirit walker
☼ New death sound
This was the same as Tauren Chieftain, which could send the wrong signal amid a messy battle.

☼ Disenchant
► Mana cost reduced from 100 to 90
► Damage against summons increased from 250 to 300
More utilitarian bonuses, since it's a bigger unit less spammable than priests.

Farseer
☼ Far sight
► Passive aura on nearby allies reducing by 25/30/35% their miss chances
< It checks on a missed attack through buff or moving target
► Gets the vision of targeted units & buildings for 15 seconds when cast
► Affected units can't dodge any attacks (and their attacker can't miss too)
This makes this ability more usefull in combat & scouting, especialy against undead & nightelves

☼ Eathquake
► Affected buildings gets -4 armor during the effect
More breakthrough punch

Blade master
☼ Mirror image
► Mirror images can also cast wind walk with no extra damage
☼ Critical hit
► Doesn't cumulate with wind walk damage, will take the maximum of the two
► 5s cooldown
No longer any absurd random 500 free damage ; less RNG.
Wind walking illusions are a great plus for confusing enemies even more.

☼ Bladestorm
► Gets magic imune instead of invulnerable
► Can walk through units
► Every projectiles are bounced back to their attacker
Instead of a free damage ride, this would add a bit more risk.
However repelling enemy projectiles would be very fun and in the theme.

Tauren Chieftain
☼ Reincarnation
► When resurected will immediatly do a war stomp free of mana & reload, based on the current one if learned
More offensive synergy

Watch tower
☼ Armor changed from Heavy to normal (not medium)
☼ Base damage increased from 15 to 22
☼ Damage sides per dice increased from 3 to 5
☼ Attack cooldown increased from 0.6 to 0.9
☼ Missile art changed from big arrow to troll spear
Same DPS, much better coherence with the theme.
No longer gets melted down by magic attacks if not upgraded.
Rienforced defenses unchanged.

Orc Burrow
☼ Armor changed from heaby to normal (not medium)

Healing salvo
☼ When expired out of combat, adds up 1 hp regen until back in combat
☼ Heals diseases and makes the unit immune to diseases while active

Orb of lightning
☼ The expiation chance has a 5s reload time
☼ Can be used as a shaman expiation with mana cost & same reload
Less RNG, more raidin' !

Nature blessing
☼ Doubles ancient root & uproot speed
More flexibility when doing ancient shenaningans

Wisp
☼ Becomes invisible if harvesting on a tree at night
☼ Receives half damage from magic & spells
More defense & less raid at night, especialy in early game

Archer
☼ The first trained archer is a Sentinel
► Based on campaign shandris
► Level 3
► If dead, the next trained archer is a Sentinel
► Not a seperate unit selection
Less weak archer in early game

☼ Elune grace
► Pierce/Magic reduction increased at night from 35/20% to 50/40%
► Description changed to reduction by 35% instead of to 65% for piercing attacks
► Description changed to reduction by 20% instead of to 80% for magic attacks
More night synergy.

Huntress
☼ The first trained huntress is a Naisha-like (haven't found a name yet)
► Based on campaign naisha
► Infinite sentinel charges with 3mn cooldown, kept at death
► +1 bounce target
Again.

☼ Moon glaive
► Sets bounce damage reduction from 0.5 to 0.4
More damage output since there's less reduction at each bounce

☼ New passive : Quick feet
► Gives a 15% evasion from ranged attacks
► 1 second reload
Increases survivability from ranged attacks, as it receive 50% more from pierce & siege.
Huntresses were very underwhelming due to their numerous weaknesses.

Glaive thrower
☼ Set attack type from artillery to artillery (line)
► Still not spilling range with no upgrades
☼ Vorpal blade
► Put back its tFT icon you bliztards
► Spill damage bonus from 0 to 400
Underused artillery so it gets a boost. More coherence too with the theme !

Dryad
☼ Also get the quick feet ability (see hunteress)
She gains a bit more survivability as a support unit

Druid of the claw
☼ HP increased from 430 to 600 in elven form
☼ HP increased from 810 to 880 in bear form
☼ Training bonus HP reduced from 75 to 40 (bear form final HP unchanged)
☼ Affected by Strength of the moon upgrades in elven form
Unupgraded druid of the claw was too damn frail for its price, plus being in the front taking damage directly.
To compensate late game the upgrade is lower, so we arrive at 680 in base form instead of 580.

Mountain giant
☼ A wisp can branch on it, giving the mountain giant +2hp/s regen while making the wisp invulnerable
More synergy to make it even more tankier, but having a wisp in a battle can give a bit more free XP on enemies if the giant dies.

☼ War club
► Doesn't expire
► Clicking it again will discard the club
More flexibility and less underused micro needed.

☼ Hardened skin
► By default unlocked
► Improved by upgrade at tier 3
► Minimum received damage isn't checked if it was bellow it
< For example receiving 2 damage won't raise it to 3
► Reduces damage by 4 to a minimum of 4
► The upgrade sets stats to the intended final level
► Upgrade cost reduced from 100/175 to 100/125
☼ Resistant skin
► By default unlocked
► No longer gets immune to some spells and reduce their duration, but still reduce their damage
► Improved by upgrade at tier 3
► The upgrade sets its effect to the intended final level
► Upgrade cost reduced from 50/100/75 to 50/75/60
► States the precise reduction in the descriptions
These would make transition a bit easier and spawning a giant or two in mid game without waiting their expensive upgrades.
The final effect is unchanged.

Druid of the talon
☼ Faerie fire
► Final armor cannot gow bellow -1
Enemy with no armor would melt away too easily

☼ Cyclone
► The affected unit is no longer invulnerable from 25% of air attacks
This means a unit in a cyclone can be attacked by air targeting attacks but will miss 75% of their shot.

☼ Storm crow form
► Cannot miss attacks against air units, even in a cyclone
More synergy with cyclone, resembling a bit a SC2 protoss phoenix and give more interest into the storm crow form

Ridden Hyppogryph
☼ Gain an ability to toggle melee attacks against air ennemies, by default disabled
No longer need to unmount hyppo to counter other heavy armor air enemies.

Chimera
☼ HP increased from 1000 to 1100
☼ Cost reduced from 330/70 to 305/70
☼ Corrosive breath
► Fix its damage effect as it curently doesn't trigger
► Damage per second reduced from 50 to 10
► Reduce building armor by 3 during the effect
More interest as a breakthrough unit, as the chimera is a bellow average unit right now.
Making it cheaper helps the transition.

Priestress of the moon
☼ Owl scout
► Units seen by the owl give their vision to the player for 15 seconds and they are revealed for the same duration
► Friendly units cannot miss their attack against seen enemies
☼ Trueshot aura
► Ranged damage bonus reduced from 10/20/30% to 10/15/20%
► Increases friendly ranged range by 4/8/12%
► Reduces friendly miss chances by 10/20/30%
More synergy with evasion & miss. Owl scout can have an indirect bonus in battle.

☼ Starfall
► When a target is hit 5 times by starfall, the next ones arrives every 3s instead of 1.5s for it
Reduces the long term damage potential but still threatens dynamic battles by at least dealing 250 damage within 9 seconds.

Keeper of the groove
☼ Force of nature
► Regrows dead trees if no alive trees are targeted
► Treants
< Base damage increased from 14/14/14 to 14/16/18
< Hitpoints increased from 300/300/300 to 300/350/400
More use in late game instead of being free XP pathblockers, as now it can seal tree paths.

☼ Thorn aura
► Also affects friendly rooted and uprooted ancients
► Friendly treant and ancient gains +15% effect (30/45/60%) from the aura

Tranquility
☼ Heals diseases

Demon hunter
☼ Mana burn
► Also dispells buffs on the target
► Each dispelled buffs adds +25 mana burn

☼ Evasion
► 0.5 second cooldown
Less RNG when focused

Warden
☼ Vengeance
► Base damage increased from 24 to 34
► HP increased from 1200 to 1300
► The Avatar and the spirits gain +50% damage against heroes
► The Avatar and the spirits get the current blink of the warden
This underused ability would be more interesting, and can also follow the warden to better track down enemy heroes

Root / Uproot
☼ Uprooted ancients armor changed from heavy to normal (not medium) armor
Melted too easily by magic attacks.

Tree of life
☼ Entangle
► Can manually entangle multiple goldmines from the same rooted tree of life
► Only automaticaly targets the nearest mine if none is entangled
A bit more flexibility on some maps & custom where you have multiple goldmine in the same base

Chimera Roost
☼ Cost reduced from 140/190/80 to 140/150/75
Much more alike gryphon aviaries in terms of costs, and makes underused chimeras a bit more easier to transition to.

About the Kodo Beast:
I do agree that it kinda gets melted by ranged attacks. It even used to have 790 hit points initially, long ago.
As to the kodo beast not being affected by upgrades, I think it's because the kodo beast is a special unit-type which leans more into the role of a spellcaster (supporting unit even) than the average role of a grunt or a troll headhunter. As we all know, spellcasters don't gain any armor upgrades. They did use to gain attack when upgrading their adept and mastery training but no more.
And the kodo beast is initially quite powerful compared to any un-upgraded spellcaster.

Obviously the same for the Druid of the Claw; it's a spellcaster.

Very good idea about Thorns Aura affecting Ancients!

PS: i'm just trying to follow Blizzard's logic!

 

[Bleeq]

DK could use+25 HP to boost his durability as he is always focused at when in fights i agree with the MG one

Dk is always focussed because hes the weak(er) point that heals everything else.
Hes like the lynch pin holding everything else together with his power, so of course youd focus him. Getting rid of him is like your only chance at bringing the other threats down. Its also why people focus the statues because he cant heal them.

Edit - and he can self heal with death pact anyway lol.

 

[Bleeq]

About the Kodo Beast:
I do agree that it kinda gets melted by ranged attacks. It even used to have 790 hit points initially, long ago.
As to the kodo beast not being affected by upgrades, I think it's because the kodo beast is a special unit-type which leans more into the role of a spellcaster (supporting unit even) than the average role of a grunt or a troll headhunter. As we all know, spellcasters don't gain any armor upgrades. They did use to gain attack when upgrading their adept and mastery training but no more.
And the kodo beast is initially quite powerful compared to any un-upgraded spellcaster.

Obviously the same for the Druid of the Claw; it's a spellcaster.

Very good idea about Thorns Aura affecting Ancients!

PS: i'm just trying to follow Blizzard's logic!

Also, i haven't looked into kodos specifically, but units do have a rough stat budget.
I was play around with it in a spreadsheet while designing my custom units and its something like:
1 dps = 25hp
Average unit budget is ~13 per food.
Obviously it varies a bit and in particular tier 3 melee get more like 15 or so per food, or casters its like 9-10.

If you factor in kodo aura i would say they probably get a pretty good deal. Say thwy gwt 11 or 12 budget but also buff your entire army by 20% damage. That is great value for a unit.

Thry really are a bit like a caster because their devour also stands in for the hard CC spell the other 3 races have (poly, whirlwind, cripple/possess).

 

[FlameofChange]

What do you mean by budget ? It doesn't have any unit and it confuses me. Do you mean DPS ?

For the kodo, I haven't thought of them as spellcasters, which could make sense with the unarmored & no upgrades.
However, spellcasters doesn't have physical gear or specific armor, while kodos don't run on magic : it has weapons like any unit. We could compare it to the spellbreaker which is both a regular unit benefiting from upgrades and a spellcaster.
Their attack is very underwhelming and the feast ability makes them a bit vulnerable since they have to go to melee.
The changes makes it much tankier and hit slightly harder, so adding a Kodo in your party doesn't feel a waste of money & dps.
Mass kodo would be fun yet not strong. The heavy armor adds a new threat from magic attackers. So even with upgrades it's not hitting as hard as mass berserk or wind riders.

 

[raypack]

I get you but c'mon, I don't think a 10 damage spellcaster is a threat to anything. Am I just oblivious to it? For me magic damage is super useless. The only unit whose attack has magic damage and doesn't suck is the phoenix.

 

[FlameofChange]

I get you but c'mon, I don't think a 10 damage spellcaster is a threat to anything. Am I just oblivious to it? For me magic damage is super useless. The only unit whose attack has magic damage and doesn't suck is the phoenix.

Some things to understand.
1) Casters have a cheap cost, so increasing their DPS would make them damage dealers, which is almost never the case. Furthermore they doesn't attack often as they sometimes spam spells instead. Furthermore they throw a puny little projectile in most case to reinforce this idea, leaving breathing room for other damage dealers with juicy attacks.
2) Magic damage still does double against heavy armor and +25% against light (which are basically air units), so here it can punch a bit more heavy brawlers.
3) Gryphons, Wyrms and chimeras do splash magic damage. They have slow attack speed due to that, since they could deal 100-200 damage per shot in total (i.e. tasty footies or horsies). When reaching a critical mass they can explode half of your army in few salvos. However I guess you weren't talking about them.
4) To avoid magic spam there's magic resistant units (heroes, ranged, buildings, specialists), so meta isn't about who's spamming elite air units the fastest.
5) They had pierce damage in RoC, which countered heavy & air units. The magic type partly inherits this.

Which changes do you suggest then ? Give us some precise stats so we can better understand your point of view.

 

[raypack]

Some things to understand.
1) Casters have a cheap cost, so increasing their DPS would make them damage dealers, which is almost never the case. Furthermore they doesn't attack often as they sometimes spam spells instead. Furthermore they throw a puny little projectile in most case to reinforce this idea, leaving breathing room for other damage dealers with juicy attacks.
2) Magic damage still does double against heavy armor and +25% against light (which are basically air units), so here it can punch a bit more heavy brawlers.
3) Gryphons, Wyrms and chimeras do splash magic damage. They have slow attack speed due to that, since they could deal 100-200 damage per shot in total (i.e. tasty footies or horsies). When reaching a critical mass they can explode half of your army in few salvos. However I guess you weren't talking about them.
4) To avoid magic spam there's magic resistant units (heroes, ranged, buildings, specialists), so meta isn't about who's spamming elite air units the fastest.
5) They had pierce damage in RoC, which countered heavy & air units. The magic type partly inherits this.

Which changes do you suggest then ? Give us some precise stats so we can better understand your point of view.

Oh I totally forgot that the Frost Wyrms and stuff have magic damage now. I'm not a fan of TFT balance as you can tell; I completely hate Hero damage type and Magic damage type.
Anyway I wasn't actually thinking of what I would do but just wanted to let you know that in my point of view, blizzard treated the kodo beast as a spellcaster. But you brought up the Spell Breaker which is also a spellcaster/warrior type of unit. Druid of the Claw as well but he does benefit from upgrades when in bear form so I shall ignore him for now.
And my explanation to that (spellbreaker using upgrades) is that this happened during TFT, not RoC. The way I see it, Blizzard didn't add any Damage and Armor upgrades so the spellcasters in RoC, whereas in TFT they decided to do it but ended up only doing it for the new units, not already existing ones.
Then one might wonder: spellcasters gained attack damage in RoC (early patches) and yes that is true but they gained attack damage from their Spellcaster upgrade, not the normal upgrades from the Blacksmith/War Mill/Graveyard/ Hunter's Hall.

You intrigued me as to what changes I would suggest so I am compelled to answer:
I would make an upgrade for the Kodo Beast that makes it take reduced damage from Piercing and Magic attacks. An upgrade that is not cheap and requires some tech.
For example a 35% damage reduction.
The alternative is adding a Hardened Skin upgrade (renamed to Tough Hide or whatever) that reduces damage by a flat amount (perhaps not only from ranged attacks but all attacks but for now let's keep it ranged attacks (pierce and magic)). For example 8 damage flat reduction. Like this units such as the Frost Wyrm will still deal a lot of damage but weaker units such as Archers will indeed deal a lot less damage.

Now that I'm talking about this; I would also add the same type of upgrade for the Tauren. Some type of damage reduction. Or at least increase their goddamn armor. Especially if Spirit Walkers didn't exist (I hate this unit for no reason lol).

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

i think that tauren dont need an armor buff their armor type (heavy armor) is total garbage you would think heavy armor from its name is kinda big deal lol medium armor reduces more damage than heavy armor ever will not only it gets melted down by magic it doesnt reduce any sort of damage making ranged units rule supreme especially in large fights the problem must be solved from the roots that is make heavy armor reduce 10% of spells and pierce damage and reduce the magic bonus from 200% to 185% at least thats what i think would solve the problem that melee units have

 

[FlameofChange]

Oh I totally forgot that the Frost Wyrms and stuff have magic damage now. I'm not a fan of TFT balance as you can tell; I completely hate Hero damage type and Magic damage type.

Hero damage type was separated from normal since heroes had bonus against ranged units.
Normal was reserved from melee (or short ranged) so hero type was created so they are neutral against everything except buildings.

I would make an upgrade for the Kodo Beast that makes it take reduced damage from Piercing and Magic attacks. An upgrade that is not cheap and requires some tech.

Kodos aren't meant to be made in large numbers, so an upgrade affecting few active units is counter productive.
Mountain giants are pure tanks and can be replaced often, as a kodo stays in the back. An upgrade for them will clog a lot the bestiary too.
Instead of adding more quirky abilities we could simply enlarge its HP pool and give it a heavy armor. If the kodo is really too strong with upgrades we can reduce its base HP and keep the armor upgrade. For example stay at 1000 but affected by armor upgrades, increasing its potential attack HP to 1360 (each armor points increases by 6% the theorical HP pool).

Now that I'm talking about this; I would also add the same type of upgrade for the Tauren. Some type of damage reduction. Or at least increase their goddamn armor. Especially if Spirit Walkers didn't exist (I hate this unit for no reason lol).

The role of taurens is to put a meatshield in front of the player and brawl the shit out of smaller units. The AoE damage adds up really good in a prolonged fight.
Bloodlust + War drums + endurance aura + spirit link can make them monstruous against any unprepared army, as the orc tactic is to wipe out enemies before they get killed.
Ancestral spirit can also resurrect taurens mid-battle for free so increasing their resistance would make them too strong when supported. Healing wave & healing ward can increase a lot their staying power..

i think that tauren dont need an armor buff their armor type (heavy armor) is total garbage you would think heavy armor from its name is kinda big deal lol medium armor reduces more damage than heavy armor ever will not only it gets melted down by magic it doesnt reduce any sort of damage making ranged units rule supreme especially in large fights the problem must be solved from the roots that is make heavy armor reduce 10% of spells and pierce damage and reduce the magic bonus from 200% to 185% at least thats what i think would solve the problem that melee units have

I think what's makes it confusing is the way it is called ; due to RoC logic which stood to this day (light for ranged, medium for melee, heavy for large/air). My take is to rename/reicon the types in a specific way. Here's some of my improvised suggestions to illustrate :
☼ Light -> Air
☼ Medium -> Rogue
☼ Heavy -> Warrior
☼ Unarmored -> None

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

I think what's makes it confusing is the way it is called ; due to RoC logic which stood to this day (light for ranged, medium for melee, heavy for large/air). My take is to rename/reicon the types in a specific way. Here's some of my improvised suggestions to illustrate :
☼ Light -> Air
☼ Medium -> Rogue
☼ Heavy -> Warrior
☼ Unarmored -> None

had blizzard want to rename them it would have done long ago but good suggestion nonetheless it would make much more sense like this

 

[Bleeq]

What do you mean by budget ? It doesn't have any unit and it confuses me. Do you mean DPS ?

For the kodo, I haven't thought of them as spellcasters, which could make sense with the unarmored & no upgrades.
However, spellcasters doesn't have physical gear or specific armor, while kodos don't run on magic : it has weapons like any unit. We could compare it to the spellbreaker which is both a regular unit benefiting from upgrades and a spellcaster.
Their attack is very underwhelming and the feast ability makes them a bit vulnerable since they have to go to melee.
The changes makes it much tankier and hit slightly harder, so adding a Kodo in your party doesn't feel a waste of money & dps.
Mass kodo would be fun yet not strong. The heavy armor adds a new threat from magic attackers. So even with upgrades it's not hitting as hard as mass berserk or wind riders.

What I mean is that all units have a balance between damage and health, whether they lean more glass cannon or meat shield, and when I was looking at this balance there is a pattern or sort of budget allocated to each stat. See the below images in spoilers:

Spoiler: budget images

In the U column you can see dps per food, and in V column is HP per (food x 25). those together give the budget in W column.
the colours in the food column are a bit of an indication what unit role they fill like t1 melee or caster.

From this we can see kodo actually has good stat budget if considered a caster.
We can also see wyverns are gimped, which is certainly how grubby feels about them.

It obviously doesn't factor in all variables tho like abilities, speed, range, armour and type matchups etc.
e.g. gargs and hippos do massive melee damage, but its also a type which doesn't counter light/flying armour so compared to ranged air with magic/piercing damage, it isn't as impressive as first thought.

 

[Retera]

I'm behind on catching up to reading all the thoughts here, but some thoughts from me:

• I think that having a "captain" system and also a "hero" system is confusing for new players. The idea that was mentioned about "your first footman is a captain" raises the question, why not just replace the "hero" system with that? What you are describing makes sense for people who played this game for 20 years and get used to creative ideas layered on top of the base concepts, but for new people if somebody says "where's your hero" and they go find their captain instead because they don't get it, it would just be a really odd confusing thing to have these fairly arbitrary imaginary designations between who is a Captain and who is a Hero. [Yes, I know that you're referring to "The Captain" unit from the campaign, but from a game design standpoint if the first unit that you train of a particular kind is heroic, why not apply that system to all or none types of units? And if you apply it to all types of units, why even have an Altar to train Heroes? Why not just have the first unit of the kind that you train be the Hero?]
• In the Reign of Chaos Beta from Hallfiry's archive, the Kodo clearly had multiple drum abilities with either autocast or toggleable icons (I'm forgetting) such that the user probably would turn the Healing Drums or the Damage Drums on or off or something, to pick which kind of effect the Kodo was providing. So, I think the idea that in Blizzard's mind that the Kodo beast started out as a caster is probably quite likely

 

[FlameofChange]

I made some tests with my easy to implement changes, and I changed few bits :
☼ Applied attack/armor type name/desc/icon changes (balance is the same)
☼ Feedback doesn't work on bouncing attacks, even on the first target (I had to manually recode it)
☼ 5 target siege engine barrage is too strong against few air foes, i reduced it to 3 so it has a lower DPS overall

I also want to experiment a food cost dilatation by doubling everything (food cost, supplied food, max food, upkeep steps) and tweak some food cost to better approach the unit power. For example Ghouls and archers costing 3 food (1.5 in previous mode), Spirit walker & spell breaker 5 (2.5), etc (more might come soon, there were only ideas improvised on the spot).

My main post is updated as well, with a color code showing what I implemented with success.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

I made some tests with my easy to implement changes, and I changed few bits :
☼ Applied attack/armor type name/desc/icon changes (balance is the same)
☼ Feedback doesn't work on bouncing attacks, even on the first target (I had to manually recode it)
☼ 5 target siege engine barrage is too strong against few air foes, i reduced it to 3 so it has a lower DPS overall

I also want to experiment a food cost dilatation by doubling everything (food cost, supplied food, max food, upkeep steps) and tweak some food cost to better approach the unit power. For example Ghouls and archers costing 3 food (1.5 in previous mode), Spirit walker & spell breaker 5 (2.5), etc (more might come soon, there were only ideas improvised on the spot).

My main post is updated as well, with a color code showing what I implemented with success.

oh wow i thought the idea was just paper but thats some real dedication on your side to see your vision come true

 

[zeney]

I like how the game plays on early-mid stages ~50 food - a lot of micro, army compostition very important as well as every unit, every hero level (up to 5-6), every item and merc. Small details impact tempo and open new ways to take advantage.
It would be much better to have more variety of units for composition flexibility and avoid “mass” strategies - especially mass air. (hate it!)
Mass air isn’t fun at all for many reasons like blocking view of land fights, difficult to focus and unhealthy goldmine harass.
I’d prefer to see limited big air like frost wyrm, gryphons, wiverns, chimaeras, dragons. From this perspective, a good example of terrible design is gyrocopters.
There is huge room for new items, heroes, creeps and reimplementation of runes, new mercs.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

I like how the game plays on early-mid stages ~50 food - a lot of micro, army compostition very important as well as every unit, every hero level (up to 5-6), every item and merc. Small details impact tempo and open new ways to take advantage.
It would be much better to have more variety of units for composition flexibility and avoid “mass” strategies - especially mass air. (hate it!)
Mass air isn’t fun at all for many reasons like blocking view of land fights, difficult to focus and unhealthy goldmine harass.
I’d prefer to see limited big air like frost wyrm, gryphons, wiverns, chimaeras, dragons. From this perspective, a good example of terrible design is gyrocopters.
There is huge room for new items, heroes, creeps and reimplementation of runes, new mercs.

i had an idea for creeps that is make them more viable especially those lvl 1 mercs that are useless and not worth at all the idea is make them cost 80 gold has 5 stock and recharge every 15 seconds air units could be limited more but in 1v1 air units aint all that common at least the hard hitters being frost wyrms

 

[FlameofChange]

If you have a problem with mass air it is because you don't anticipate it soon enough. Git gud like they say.
More seriously, mass air is quite easy to counter for each factions. Depending on the matchup you have to rely on your available tools, or rush the enemy if you see an opening. Remember that light armor takes x2 from piercing attacks, so they have effectively half HP against your ranged units.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

If you have a problem with mass air it is because you don't anticipate it soon enough. Git gud like they say.
More seriously, mass air is quite easy to counter for each factions. Depending on the matchup you have to rely on your available tools, or rush the enemy if you see an opening. Remember that light armor takes x2 from piercing attacks, so they have effectively half HP against your ranged units.

yeah towers can wreck them and are quite cost effective at it too