A charming first attempt at a custom faction, it is both simple and enjoyable to see.
At a glance, it's worth noting that a lot of the stats of units are unedited from the ingame units they were based on, but the changes in abilities and upgrades do offer a level of variety. Following a more aggressive playstyle, I think it's important to keep to that original vision (there is really no harm in having that as the playstyle) - of course, it's possible that the execution for a more balanced experience would need to be refined, but for a project like this I think I would not worry too much about the balance since that could remove from its identity.
To look at each unit individually, we have:
Toiler - The worker for the faction, it is functionally the same as the Peasant with a "Call to Arms" ability, with the added bonus of the "Tauren" tag (now renamed "Lizard"). This tag is used for all ground "Lizard" units would be valuable in the instance of a unit having the "Ancestral Spirit" ability (this is a bit of
Foreshadowing - more on this when I talk about the heroes!).
Slicer - This unit is the ingame Footman, with Critical Strike (12%) instead of Defend, and access to Brute Strength. This makes it a formidable combatant once these researches are accrued, which already makes for a unit that scales better towards the mid-to-late game than the ingame Footman. However, this does still have Unit Inventory (Human), and so it can never benefit from the Backpack upgrade - good thing people tend not to bother with those!
Sagittarius - The ingame Archer unit replaces Elune's Grace with a custom Vampiric Potion ability, providing a bonus +2 damage for 10 seconds. This is actually a bit of a downgrade from the ingame Archer, who for one of their upgrades can get +3 damage permanently, and in another upgrade get additional attack range - all without having tier 1.5 tech requirements.
Juggernaut - A slower Knight (thank god, imagine if it ran
that fast!), except it has... Pulverise? That's a really cute combination of Tauren and Knight, and it retains the Animal War Training upgrade (renamed "Champion's Might"). Very nice
Legionnaire - The ingame Tauren, except it benefits from Animal War Training and can unlock the Slam ability, effectively replacing Pulverise with an active cast ability that stuns and deals more damage. It
also gets Drunken Brawler, with a 5% chance to dodge and a.... 500% chance to deal double damage. Holy crap.
Raptor Rider - Ingame Raider with Frenzy, retains Pillage.
Wind Viper - Wind Rider, but it has mana to cast Abolish Magic. It has a reskinned Envenomed Weapons ability, so it's purely a buff to the original design (which, balance wise, has probably been lackluster for a good while now, so the buff is welcome).
Dragonfly Cavalier - Batrider, but with Shadow Strike.
Siege Lizard - Dragon Turtle (Naga) but with Chain Lightning instead of Spiked Shell and Hardened Skin. Also can't swim. Nice simple design, although I'm beginning to notice more and more damage spells on units.
Enchanter - Witch Doctor but with Healing Salve (still dispels when attacked, making it a poor man's Rejuvenation) and Inner Fire. Retains Stasis Trap. For some reason edited to share stats with the Priest, instead of the unit being based off of the Priest.
Witch - Witch Doctor (for real, this time!) but with Breath of Frost (oh boy...), Feral Spirit (summons 1 Fel Beast) and... Curse. Genuinely sounds like a mentally powerful caster.
Alchemyest - Spirit Walker but with Soul Burn (for real?), Firebolt (yep, the one that stuns), Lightning Shield
and Rain of Fire. Holy crap this is insanely strong. You almost never actually see direct damage spells on casters in Warcraft 3, and here's one with three of them alongside one of the more acceptable ingame instances of it. All with Spirit Walker stats.
So, looking at the units overall, there is a huge emphasis on damage spells which, for the most part, does little to offer strategic variety. Having a lot of these in a gameplay style which uses almost none can be problematic, and using spells like Soul Burn as a unit ability is really formidable for the fact they have secondary effects which are primarily restricted to heroes (Soul Burn, for example, causes a "Silence" effect on the target, meaning if you chain this, you can stop heroes from being able to cast completely [this lasts 6 seconds on heroes per cast, btw]).
Balance wise, I wouldn't really bother so much with that, but design wise the overuse of damage spells does seem to provide a disservice, and in some instances the utility spells are lackluster (Mending being purely a non-combat healing could be okay I guess, but there's just better stuff available in the game, but at the same time it really depends on the gameplay style you want to accomplish for the race).
To briefly gloss over some key points about the Heroes, I want to mention:
- Having a hero with a spell based off of Raise Dead can provide some issues in some rare occasions, purely because Raise Dead has an inbuilt restriction on how many units can be summoned by it overall (the cap, I believe, is 15). It might be better to base this ability off of Carrion Beetle, which can accomplish the same by applying a duration and I
believe setting the max unit count to 0 might make it infinite (if not, just set it to an impossibly high target). If anybody thinks this is overpowered, they're objectively wrong (the spell requires a corpse, Carrion Beetle as a hero ability exists, Feral Spirit, Summon Water Elemental, Lava Spawn,
the Beastmaster's entire spell roster, there's a whole host of available summons, and raising Skeletons often serves primarily to feed enemy experience as game's progress).
- Ancestral Spirit makes its way here as a hero ability, meaning early on you can revive your fallen units. That's kind of cool.
- Smoke Bomb requires the hero to be channeling it, which is a bit of a shame since I think it could benefit from using what you seemed to have originally designed with a dummy caster placing it for you, like you throw down the Smoke Bomb. One thing I could even suggest (which might be bonkers OP) is that it could combine ideas of Wind Walk and Smoke Bomb together - you cast it, your hero becomes invisible and moves faster (no wind walk bonus damage when attacking, however!) and it creates a Smoke Bomb around where it was.
- Loyal Assassin design is nice in some areas, repeats Shadow Strike (which is available as a unit ability), Heavy Strike seems thematically mismatched and has a 300% chance to deal 3x damage as well as 100 bonus damage. That's bonkers powerful, but at least it's an ultimate.
I won't go into too much more detail here, but some primary ideas I would sort of put forward for future faction designs would be to look at how rare it is to see damage spells on units (these primarily go to heroes, each hero usually having at least one option, with few exceptions), and partly to think about the theme you're going for a bit more. Other than that, a wonderful start
Approved
