Too OP for a flying unit?

[DevZ]

the modified demolish thing should work wonders, kind of regretting not thinking of that myself and using it in my maps, would've make things so much easier and funner

 

[ArchDuke]

you learn something new everyday

 

[Lord Alyx]

Well after some tweaks I came up with this: a Chimaera that can attack up to 3 ground units at once with barrage, has over 1500 hp, and can attack air units so it wont get hard countered by aerial attackers. What do you guys think?

THis is excellent, if you balance its attack, movement, etc. it should be the perfect heavy flier unit

don't forget that it needs a piercing attack to be effective against air units, also it needs a siege attack to really be able to damage structures

I'd suggest piercing attack against air and siege against everything else, again excellent unit

 

[Lord Aiden]

ye, that's what I'm doing, I was actually thinking giving it 2 pierce attacks, one against ground and one against air, but also adding demolish such that the ground piercing attack does 1.5 times the damage to structures, i think that should balance things out

 

[Lord Alyx]

sounds good -but remember piercing attacks do reduced damage to structures already, I think it's reduced by 65%, if you want your piercing attack to really damage units/structures with fortified armor you would to set the demolish ratio to somewhere between 3.5 and 5.0 for buildings

 

[ArchDuke]

Youre right

Piercing attacks are reduced to 35% when attacking fortified armor

so an attack of 10 would become 10*0.35=3.5

However with demolish it could be enhancer by the factor the demolish is set to, for instance if the factor was 3.5

final value of attack = (initial value of attack) * (attack/defense modifier) * (demolish modifier)
???? = 10 * .35 * 3.5

12.25 = 10*.35*3.5

 

[Lord Alyx]

yes, now imagine what happens when that demolish ratio is increased from 3.5 to 5.0 or even 6

 

[ArchDuke]

destruction !

 

[Lord Alyx]

!!

 

[Lord Aiden]

lots of potential in that, but I need it to be balanced as well, plus idk if it will work with barrage

 

[Lord Alyx]

experiment, otherwise you will never know

 

[Lord Aiden]

@-Phoenix- you've done lots of unit balancing ?

 

[Lord Alyx]

I tried to make a campaign together with some friends, so I have done some. Balancing is not an easy task like some people believe it to be

 

[Lord Aiden]

Campaign, thats interesting, did you ever finish it?

 

[Lord Alyx]

No, we didn't even get to a workable version, some maps were done but still had many bugs, i learned my lesson about modding: its not as easy as it looks

 

[Lord Aiden]

Yea, that 100% true, I'm trying to balance out air and anti-air right now, its a bitch at times

 

[Lord Alyx]

I can relate, there was one mission in the campaign I was making where your goal was to invade an island and destroy an enemy general's base. Problem I've found was that with the air units available to the player this could be done by simply amassing a huge air assault on certain locations

 

[Lord Aiden]

How did you solve this problem? Reduce the players air capacity? give the computer some crazy aa unit? maybe flooded the island with seige tanks ?

 

[Lord Alyx]

Well lets just say we came up with a rather effective solution to this air assault problem

 

[Lord Aiden]

Increased the amount/damage/health of towers?, increased the amount/health/damage of archers? Spammed siege tanks? I'm really curious here, do tell

 

[Lord Alyx]

Excellent guesses Lord Aiden, but no

We heavily tweaked around the flying machine: increased their hp to 500(and food cost to 2), increased their range to 650, increased their damage. We made them an excellent counter for any kind of air assault and it worked perfectly

 

[Lord Aiden]

Nice solution very smart!

 

[Lord Alyx]

Took lots of time to think of actually, anti-air air units are actually the best counter for aerial assaults mainly because of their mobility (also having fortified armor doesn't hurt )

 

[ArchDuke]

@-Phoenix-

Damn, excellent idea, tried all kinds of thing for aa and have never thought of that, propz for your idea its fucking awesome

 

[Lord Alyx]

Thank you! at first we were gonna tweak towers, but then we thought about the fact that towers are stationairy, and an anti-air unit would do much better, and an air anti-air unit would probably be the best

and we went from there

 

[ArchDuke]

If possible could you provide the hp, armor, damage stats of the finalized flying machines

 

[Lord Alyx]

Certainly, give me a few minutes to open up the editor and look at the unit

 

[Lord Alyx]

Ok, they have 500hp, fortified armor, 2 armor, attack is pierce 15-25, 1 sec cooldown, 650 range, cost 2 food, have small aoe damage, but they cannot attack ground units

 

[ArchDuke]

So how effective are these things against air raids?

 

[Lord Alyx]

depends on the size of the air raid, and the number of flying machines at your disposal

 

[ArchDuke]

I'm thinking like 9-10 frost wyrms

 

[Lord Alyx]

12-14 flying machines should be able to handle that, dont forget that magic does 35% damage to fortified armor, while piercing does 200% damage to small armor, if the machines focus fire the wyrms are done

 

[ArchDuke]

Interesting

 

[Lord Alyx]

The best part is that you can't attack with them and only defend against air units, so they are not op in the conventional sense

 

[Lord Aiden]

they're completely defenseless against ground unit with air attacks though

 

[Lord Alyx]

That's kind of the point: they can't attack the enemy but they are a perfect counter for air assaults

 

[ArchDuke]

why not just spam the unmodified flying machine instead considering it costs 1 food??

 

[Lord Alyx]

The original is far less effective against air units (for instance it has heavy armor which takes 200% damage from magic attacks, and a long attack cooldown)

 

[Lord Aiden]

I just tested this out and you're 100% right, if you modify flying machine to phoenix's specifications they will turn into the ultimate anti-air flying units, around 10 of these things will likely kill 10 frost wyrms as long as they focus fire, their rapid attack rate and the fortified armor they have are the key to what makes them so damn effective, I can't rep you cause I already did, but expect another rep from me later in the day, you definitely deserve it for letting us know about this unique anti-air strategy.

You're awesome -Phoenix-

 

[Lord Alyx]

Thanks, glad to share some useful information with my fellow hivers, btw if you think I can help you with anything else (regarding wc3 editing I mean) then by all means ask away, Ill try to be as helpful as possible

 

[Lord Aiden]

Hey Phoenix whats your take on basic infantry that can attack air as well as ground units? Did you create anything like this in the past?

 

[Lord Alyx]

Well first things first. remember that riflemen, berserkers, archers, etc. have medium armor, they have this for a reason, to make themselves less vulnerable to piercing and magic, which are the 2 most common types of attacks of flying units

However basic infantries all have heavy armor, which if you know wc3 then you know that it takes 200% damage from magic attacks, so how do you make a basic infantry unit that can function against both ground and air???

The Answer:
Modify an night elf ability called Elune's grace to reduce damage from magic by 50% and you can also modify the damage taken from piercing attacks with this ability, change the ability, its icon, etc. rename it and then give it to your soldier.

Give the soldier a 2nd attack where it launches a projectile at air units, look at how its done with heroes, the 2nd attack is a launch of a projectile, I can't explain this here but I'm sure there are tutorials, so please look into those

Then you have to balance out how much damage attack 1 does and how much damage attack 2 does as well as cooldowns for each.

Lastly how much hp the unit and how much food it'll cost (along with how much gold and lumber it will cost obviously)

I've tried a 400hp unit costing 2 food but it got spammed too much, try a 500-675hp unit with a food cost of 3 I think that should balance things out, you could even go for a stronger unit, just increase the food cost, the rest is up to you

 

[Lord Aiden]

I'ma try this, let you know what comes out

 

[Lord Alyx]

I would suggest have a 630hp unit for 3 food, and 18-20 normal damage and 15-19 air damage, I think that's balanced, if not then add or subtract armor

 

[Lord Aiden]

No 2 food units because they get spammed too much?

 

[Lord Alyx]

Yes, spamming will become an issue if they cost only 2 food and have a low gold and lumber cost, this is fixed when they have 3 food and the other costs are higher as well

 

[Lord Aiden]

Did you ever try a stronger 4 food unit?

 

[Lord Alyx]

I tried but it didn't fit well with the gameplay, the kodo rider is essentially a 4 unit ground/air attacker, there's little point of having something strong that can attack both ground and air unless its some sort of an elite unit, and that's a completely different concept than what I'm trying to get at here if you're following

 

[ArchDuke]

What about elite units @-Phoenix- ?

 

[Lord Alyx]

What about them?