[Altered Melee] Dwarf Race Critique.

[nerub]

I am making a custom race based on the Ironforge Dwarves.
As i make the race with each progress , i will post down ideas of units to be critiqued.
I want to know if the idea or concepts would work out in Melee.
Are they balanced or overpowered?

#Idea No 1

First unit to be critiqued would be the Guardian.
Its a tier 1 unit that can be trained from the T1 equivalent of the human barracks .
He is the basic melee unit for the Dwarves.
I am giving him 550 health and 4 armor.
His attack damage will be 11-12 while his attack speed will be 2.2 secs.

I am thinking of making this unit like a tank, basically he will be the defender for the various ranged units of the Dwarves later on.

For his ability, i am thinking of giving him Taunt, while making him take reduced damage from attacks for 5 seconds.

However, is that wise? I had seldom played much ladder melee in the past, but from what i googled online, mountain giants with Taunt are a pain in the ass.
Now i am actually making pseudo giants at T1!
Would it be too overpowered?

 

[Colonel_Custard]

Critique:
To some degree you are right, making a T1 tank is geberally going to be OP assuming you stat him that way. The footman in standard wc3 are fairly tanky in comparison to the rest of the T1 units and you can then upgrade them to resist ranged dmg better too.

Note:
Keep the idea youve got with the tanky T1, just test him in some little battles against other units without controlling them and if they win every time - nerf him a bit until he works the way you want him too.

Sidenote:
I am currently also making a dwarven race. My theme is that they are a late game melee powerhouse and that their base is highly defensible with cannons on most of their buildings.

Good luck with your project.

 

[nerub]

Thanks! Would u also believe it? i also had somewhat same idea for the towers awhile ago.
I had made a trigger with every building, a tower will spawn with it.
This will give each building a tower .
The towers themselves are invulnerable, in order to destroy them, u must destroy the corresponding building.
Effectively, each building is a tower on its own.

 

[Kyrbi0]

(Oh dang this is new)

So hey, another (Dwarf) race-maker! Very cool. I wish you luck; making races is a challenging but gratifying experience.

First and foremost, before anything else I'd be remiss not to link you to Alok's fantastic Custom Race Creation thread; not only is it amazing, but it provides links to nearly all the other great ones (MCV's is teh best).

~

A lot of what goes into designing & implementing techtrees depends on what you are making it for. Are you adding a 5th race to the original game? Replacing one of the existing 4 races? Or building up a Total Conversion, eventually replacing everything? That answer will change, well, everything. One of the biggest things it'll change* is what kind of balance you are going for, as well as how you go about things, and what things you can do.

*Sorta. There's an argument that ends up saying it doesn't really matter. More on that if you're curious

Personally, I usually plan stuff as 5th-race additions, though I'm branching into replacement. In lieu of a response from you, I'll go ahead & assume you are doing the former.

~

Being a 5th-race addition answers the main part of your question, which is basically about balance (i.e. "hey guys, is this unit balanced?"). I'm really no good at this sort of thing, but what I can tell you is that you do yourself a favor by hewing closely to Blizzard's design. Like Alok's guide talks about, do some give & take, modifying the values in tandem to keep things balanced (since we assume Blizzard's game is balanced).

Example: So you want a heavy-duty version of the Footman? Increase his armor and/or HP... But to compensate, lower some other stats (like movespeed (heavy armor) and/or attack speed (heavy weapon). Another really good way to balance stuff is increase the amount of resources (Gold/Wood/Food) that it takes/uses.

~

Being a 5th-race addition also answers the other part of your question, about Taunt. There are two parts to this: "Buff-Stacking" & "No Repeats" (I know I've written this next part half-a-dozen times before, but I can't find it so here we go).

Buff-Stacking: One glorious problem with Wc3 modding that all of us bump into at one point or another is that Buffs Do Not Stack. A custom spell based off of, say, Inner Fire, will not work correctly if cast on a unit that already has the regular Inner Fire (yes, even if you make a custom buff as well). They don't 'stack'.

So if you are making a race in addition to the existing 4, you really cannot use any pre-existing ability that needs a buff. In this case (IIRC) that would include Taunt (since it has it's own buff). Your Dwarven Guardian's would not be able to Taunt right with nearby Night Elven Mountain Giants Taunting nearby.

No Repeats: Take a look at the other four races; specifically, all the abilities on all the units & heroes & such. Notice something: there isn't a single ability that repeats*. Each ability is unique. This, even more than the Buff issue, tells you that you should probably consider something else other than Taunt for your Dwarven Guardians. It simply wouldn't 'fit' in with the rest of the game, where every unit/hero/building has unique abilities.

*There are only a few exceptions to this, but intra-race and inter-race. Stuff like "Backpack" is the same across all races (for balance); lots of units have Backpack. And inside races, there are occasionally abilities that are shared between multiple units, for various reasons (helping to build racial identity & such); stuff like Shadowmeld for the female Night Elf sentinels, and Cannibalize for the Undead Ghoul & Abomination. Otherwise... Nope.

~~~

I can't design the rest for you, but what I've written above should be a pretty good basis for building something fantastic. Good luck!

 

[nerub]

Thanks !
Yea what you have written is pretty detailed.
I would read Alok's guide.
Hmm it seem like it would help alot on balancing.

I would also keep in mind your point about the buff making.
That's interesting.
I dint know taunts don't stack.
About repeats, i agree!
In fact my Taunt ability is in fact a taunt cum a damage reduction ability.
That in its own is unique enough i think?
Its a merger of two abilities in one.

Alternatively I have this idea in my head.
Instead of a Taunt, i will make it a single target forced taunt.
The unit would be forced to attack the Guardian for 3 seconds, any other orders made would be ignored.
If its a Hero,the duration would be reduced otherwise.
It would fit the Guardian flavor wise.

Well, keep a look out for my map yea!
I have alot of crazy ideas.
I wanna make a race based heavily on creativity.

It wouldn't be too game changing, but it would be refreshing .

For example, wouldn't it be interesting to see dwarves tunneling out of gold mines?
You can enter your gold mine through a building next to the mine, and you come out of another building next to another mine miles away.
To make it not OP, you have to build the building near said mine first.
This is to compensate for the dwarves slow movement speed.
It would fit the Dwarven theme too, their greed for gold and that they are miners.
Imagine a player going for an expansion.
He finds said expansion strangely cleared of creeps, and an enemy building near it.
Out comes a bunch of rowdy dwarves, eager for battle(and to deny the buggers from the precious gold!)

If you had played dawn of war , it would be similiar to the Necrons race.

Super slow moving , but really heavily armored units .
They can also teleport to points around the map that u had built an outpost to.

 

[Kyrbi0]

Thanks !
Yea what you have written is pretty detailed.
I would read Alok's guide.
Hmm it seem like it would help alot on balancing.

Definitely.

I would also keep in mind your point about the buff making.
That's interesting.
I dint know taunts don't stack.

(I should be clear, I haven't actually physically tested Taunt much (in fact, when I use it normally in-game I don't feel like it even works, honestly). I don't know it has a buff. But you can see it in a standard game; one MG Taunts, enemies start moving towards him, then a second allied MG Taunts & (I assume) they stop moving towards #1 & start moving towards #2. So if you had a Dwarven Guardian unit doing it afterwards, you've robbed both of the MG's of their Taunt's effectiveness)

Well, keep a look out for my map yea!
I have alot of crazy ideas.
I wanna make a race based heavily on creativity.

It wouldn't be too game changing, but it would be refreshing .

I will! I'm awfully busy nowadays, but I always download (& someday check out) other techtrees.

For example, wouldn't it be interesting to see dwarves tunneling out of gold mines?
You can enter your gold mine through a building next to the mine, and you come out of another building next to another mine miles away.
To make it not OP, you have to build the building near said mine first.
This is to compensate for the dwarves slow movement speed.
It would fit the Dwarven theme too, their greed for gold and that they are miners.
Imagine a player going for an expansion.
He finds said expansion strangely cleared of creeps, and an enemy building near it.
Out comes a bunch of rowdy dwarves, eager for battle(and to deny the buggers from the precious gold!)

If you had played dawn of war , it would be similiar to the Necrons race.

Super slow moving , but really heavily armored units .
They can also teleport to points around the map that u had built an outpost to.

(Thanks for reminding me about your other topic...)

Heck yeah, man. I've wanted to re-create Zerg Nydus Canals from Starcraft for years now, and Dwarven 'Tunnels' are an absolutely perfect way of doing it. The only thing stopping me was that I was unable to figure out how... I ended up incorporating a variant into my Jungle Troll race, code-named "Grand Central Station"-style teleporting (i.e. one big building that can garrison units & then instantly transport them, one-way, to target 'Farms'), since it was easier to figure out.

Good luck with that!

 

[Kyrbi0]

Any news on this?

 

[nerub]

Hmm, yup i got a couple of ideas i going.
Give me some feedback regarding it.

Lately i have been looking into making initial defenses for the race.

#Idea 1
I would give each building a passive aura.
Unique to each building. Basically units near each building would benefit alot from the auras.
For example, I could give the townhall a passive that increases attack speed from units near it(Dwarven Ale anyone?)
The barracks more armor.
The farms, increased health regen.
The magic building, damage reduction.
Enemies would get negative corresponding debuffs too near them!
For example, enemies will get slow attack speed near the Townhall .
(Due to dwarves dumping potent Ale onto them)


I want the race to be defensive by nature. However i dont wanna implement generic ideas to them.
I want them to feel unique, and i believe these passives would go a while in defenses.
You can attack them, but be prepared to suffer the consequences!

If possible ,could i have some creative input to explain away why enemy units would get the debuffs near the rest of the buildings?
For example, how would enemy units get reduced armor near barracks?

#Idea 2
The builders will get an ability to hide in mines. They can generate passive income from them.
However, the income would be 50% lesser of what you will get normally.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Not really a passive, but here's an idea: the dwarves sell their smithing/item enchanting expertise to others, but make sure it can't be turned against them.

For example, using the "Sell Weapon" ability on a unit (allied, enemy, or neutral- not player-controlled) gives the player gold and a damage bonus to the target. The bonus lasts until the target attacks unit/building belonging to the selling player, at which point the weapon breaks, leaving the target with a damage debuff.

Other ideas: Geomancy causes the earth around dwarf buildings to slow enemies, mine gas can be used to poison them (or corrode their armor), etc.