Too OP for a flying unit?

[ArchDuke]

Hey @-phoenix I noticed that you're online, you mentioned that you prefered giving the player heavy aerial units so that they cannot be spammed, but this creates problems because it allots the player to create a strong air force, what do you do about this besides buff up the enemy?
Oh and thanks for that map you send me, it cleared a heck of a lot of things up.

 

[Lord Alyx]

Several different things you could do: first off give the player good aerial aa units, 2nd set up a build limit on a particular aerial unit (for example you got this 5 food dragon that's extremely good at destroying both ground units and structure, give it a build limit of 5) 3rd you could give the player medium units (like the couatl we recommended, although its attacks are strong, it will not last very long in battle, and even 10 of these together can be wiped out with the right strategy. Fourth make strong towers, five deploy siege machines or other effective anti air solution, this fifth one usually works like a charm.

 

[ArchDuke]

Wait what do you consider strong and weak air units in terms of health?

 

[Lord Alyx]

Ok lets say 2 different units have the same armor number, attack rate and everything

For units with light armor I would consider any unit above 900 hp strong health wise
For units with unarmormed armor I would consider any unit above 700hp strong health wise

light armor takes 2x damage from piercings attacks, while unarmored armor takes 1.5 damage from piercing attacks

So that 680hp couatl with light armor isn't strong in my book; its a medium unit

 

[ArchDuke]

Interesting

 

[Lord Alyx]

Oh yea, one thing you can do is tweak Elune's grace ability so that it reduces the damage taken from piercing attacks by like 33% or more, and call the ability thick skin, but then it will be really hard to take that unit down

I've modified some bat riders like this, made them a lot more durable

 

[ArchDuke]

Hey Phoenix, seeing as you're online, what ability (regular or modified) would you say is the best for healing?

 

[Lord Alyx]

There are lots of healing abilities that work great, but I'd have to say a modified unholy aura that heals at a greater rate but does not provide a movement bonus, its a passive ability (no mana consumed), it heals great and cannot be "disabled" in any way, but that's just my opinion.

 

[ArchDuke]

What do you think of that ultimate devotion aura btw? would you give a hero that ability?

 

[Lord Alyx]

It could actually work very well in practice, but I'd only give it to an enemy hero who's a boss or is the leader of his base or something else of that nature

 

[ArchDuke]

I was gonna ask you about flying buildings in wc3, can they be made?

 

[Lord Alyx]

I've know its been done, but there are limitations as to how they travel; basically one of my buddies had this mechanized ziggarut floating as a defense against air units, and well as ground. It would rapidly shoot at air units that came close by, and would shoot heavy shells at anything on the ground. I don't know if these buildings still retain the "building' classification though

 

[ArchDuke]

It's basically like a floating tower (defense structure) ?

 

[Lord Alyx]

It's was more as if a dark citidel took off floating, because the ziggaruit had 2000 hit points and some very powerful attacks. Imagine a ziggaruit which is mobile (but it travels very slow) that can shoot flying enemies with a piercing attack that does around 38 damage, and can shoot ground unit with an attack that is similar to the human cannon tower (only this attack has a very slow rof). That's the gist of it

 

[ArchDuke]

Is it hard to beat?

 

[Lord Alyx]

Yes it is, only flying units with siege attacks can deal good damage to it, basically it was meant as a sub-boss, when you cross from one section of this battlefield to another. There were 5 in total on this one map, each one was there to block your progress to the next section. On another map 3 of these structures were basically guarding a very important structure which was right in the middle of these 3, it was an interesting but unfinished map.

 

[ArchDuke]

Can you please tell me more about the map where they were guarding a structure ?

 

[Lord Alyx]

The structure was a Marshal (top level general's) HQ and three of these flying fortresses float around it and guard it. There were other units on the ground, but this was the major defense against anything that threated the fortress, also if the fortress received any damage it would use an ability that caused the floating structures to do more damage, even fire fore rapidly if I'm not mistaken

 

[ArchDuke]

Let me guess; a modified roar ?

 

[Lord Alyx]

I don't remember, but I think we created a specialized endurance aura that only worked on these floating objects and would turn in on for 30 sec every time the hq was attacked

 

[ArchDuke]

If you reduce the cooldown by just 25% you get a real difference right there, I know this for a fact

 

[Lord Alyx]

Yea, rapid fire, lol

 

[ArchDuke]

 

[Lord Alyx]

a roar like ability would've worked as well, but my buddy felt like this was more appropriate

 

[ArchDuke]

Were the structures really hard to damage (having 2000 health and fortified armor)

 

[Lord Alyx]

Not really; they only had 2 armor, and if you get a good amount of anti-air soldiers (archers, rifleman, etc.) to shoot at the it will shut the structure down within a short period of time, the structures however can take any unit on if its a 1 on 1 or 1 on as many as 6, so you will need about 7 or 8 strong units focusing fire to take them down.

There have been other campaigns were you were up against floating structures.

 

[ArchDuke]

I know, I've been playing wc3 for quite some time. and know a few older users (Razorfang for example has been playing wc3 since middle school, when it came out) I was told time and again that there were dozens of good campaigns that were simply lost over the years due to sites going down and users leaving, really sucks knowing that all the campaigns available to us know are about 50% or 60% of what has actually been created.

 

[Grey.Knight]

Lots of things have been lost over the years, but you might be able to find some wc3 campaigns and other maps if you look for them in the internet, I personally got lucky a few times.

 

[Lord Alyx]

A whole load of things were lost, there were entire websites with resources that went down, but most of the good ones got preserved here on hive, thank you Raille!

 

[Lord Aiden]

I agree, hey I still had that question I wanted to ask you about elite units

 

[Lord Alyx]

fire away

 

[Lord Aiden]

Just wanted to know more details about those 2 units you mentioned in that discussion we've had, like the stats and abilities etc.

 

[Lord Alyx]

The Delta trooper was basically an advanced infantry unit, it had like 750 hp, resistant skin, pillage, and a second attack that siege and did good damage against buildings, this had a food cost of 3, but it was not very effective against tier-3 units.

The other one was called “mennor” it was a weird unit that basically had 1000 hp, resistant skin, true sight, could cast curse at enemy units, and could attack both ground and air units, but was essentially designed to catch invisible units trying to get into a guarded area.

 

[Lord Aiden]

I think you misunderstood me, I meant the one from the storm mission

 

[Lord Alyx]

Ok, I think I know what you're talking about

Striker – a 900hp unit with critical strike, resistant skin, ensnare, and could use a cocktail moltov like ability against buildings I think it cost 4 food.

Ranger – a 800 hp long distance attacker, resistant skin, envenomed weapons, and had an armor that reduces piercing attacks, also had evasion of like 20% and cost 3 food.

 

[Lord Aiden]

Interesting unit, what about the dawnbreaker?

 

[Lord Alyx]

That was its code name, basically it was a soldier with resistant skin, hardened skin 1750hp, command aura, magic immunity who would be like the boss of each wave, they had a very strong shackwave ability, and a forked lightening ability, so it's best to stay here of these.

 

[Lord Aiden]

The map you've send me crashes when I try to play it in wc3, just describe the unit please

 

[Lord Alyx]

OK

This was for something I've done a long time back. The context of this was that we had this idea where you were supposed to go against a group called "elemental knights". In this particular map you were going against the wind elemental ones. Their royal guard counterpart was this unit called "Zeroth".

The stat description are as follows;

-Zeroth-
Attacks both land and air units with chaos type attack
1275hp, no mana
Abilities:
Resistant skin
Amethyst Armor - Reduces damages from spells and magic attacks to 15%
True Sight

I believe they cost 5 food each

 

[ArchDuke]

@-Phoenix-

Those Zeroth units seem like major tanks to me, love the "Amethyst Armor" ability btw, basically makes spells useless against this units without making the unit completely magic immune, and makes all flying units with magic attacks cannon fodder by reducing their attacks to a mere 30%

 

[Lord Alyx]

Yes, like I said they were a royal or high guard counterpart, it was a very interesting level where your ultimate goal was to destroy a building called "Sanctum of Winds".
Imagine twilight of the gods but reversed where all the players are human and you start on a shore and your goal is to get to the highest point where this structure is located. You have 3 heroes at your disposal and a large variety of units, but its basically a crawl of a level because of how difficult it is to go up the mountain, when my buds were testing the incomplete level it took ~3 hours to destroy the sanctum and that was on easy where the enemy's food supply was reduced.

 

[Lord Aiden]

Sounds like fun, wish you'd finish it man, you're a great modder and campaign designer

 

[ArchDuke]

I second that

 

[Lord Aiden]

@-Phoenix- regarding the problems with 1.29 you were talking about, you could always finish your project in 1.27, I for once would definitely play it

 

[Lord Alyx]

Maybe if I will have some more free time in the coming months, also I need to find all the pieces of the project like the individual maps

 

[Lord Aiden]

You didn't have them all saved in one campaign file ?

 

[Lord Alyx]

no- this was because i wasn't working on them alone, it was me and a few others

But I might've lost a few maps, and that's what the problem is

I mean I have many of the unit concepts and other details written down somewhere, but if I don't have the maps I will have to re-recreate them which will be a pain, plus I won't know where to find the models that were previously used unless I have the maps

 

[ArchDuke]

btw I had some free time right after xmas, and I'd thought I'd experiment with the editor a bit,

some things I've found;

How to beef up ranged units (aa units)

*Give them frenzy
*Critical strike
*Splash damage
*Barrage Ability
*Slow poison
*Envenomed weapons
*modified critical strike that can do 5x the damage 20% of the time to flying units
*strong chain lightening
*doom ability that summons some aa when its done
*an aura that negatively affects only enemy flying units

 

[noob]

doom is overpowered(the whole can not be removed and lasts forever) so you should probably use a variant of parasite.

 

[ArchDuke]

doom can be set to last as long as you like, set the duration to anything but 0 and youll see