WIldmen with torches

[Sir_Stig]

I feel like wild men are far too strong, their range is better than the uruk crossbowmen and their attack speed is super high. I would say that torches should only do extra damage against buildings and nazgul, or that the attack speed should go way way down, it's not like you can carry 30 lit torches. I also think the range should be at least cut in half.

EDIT: Old poll closed, the results were pretty conclusive that damage type should change.

No, they are fine as they are.
    1 (6.7%)
Yes, reduce their range
    2 (13.3%)
Yes, reduce their rate of fire
    0 (0%)
Yes, change torches to be high building damage, low unit damage
    11 (73.3%)
Yes, Other.
    1 (6.7%)

I've added a new poll to narrow down the exact type of change we want. I also realized you can add as many options as you want, so go crazy

[ziqing]

I couldn't agree more.
Torch should only be effective towards wooden building (for Rohan and Lothlorien). Actually they could make torch an ability which will only take effect in a short time, during which wildman units using torch to attack(effective against wooden building, basically do no damage to units)

[Sir_Stig]

Yeah having it as a timed ability would be a good fix, and would make sense in reality. It would take time to gather material for torches.

[Sporf_McGorf]

They do a ton of damage to units, comparable to flaming arrows. I find that to be imbalanced, since Uruk crossbowmen have the steel bolts upgrade and become the standard for demolishing units. Wildmen could be tweaked to be more effective vs structures than units, and that would be reasonable.

[Sir_Stig]

Yeah I'd be happy with that change, as it stands now they are pretty much fire archers...

[Spacetyrant93]

Agree, the damage they do is pretty high...in fact I see more Wildmen than Uruks around usually.

[Lord of Mordor]

We agree, wildman torch throwers will get nerfed in the next update. Do you think the melee wildmen are too strong as well?

[Sir_Stig]

Hmm with torches being a building damage type, I'm thinking that they would be fine. They are fairly squishy when they are in the front lines, the problem was that uruks would be their meat shield and you could use them as fast fire archers.

[ziqing]

We agree, wildman torch throwers will get nerfed in the next update. Do you think the melee wildmen are too strong as well?

Could we make multiply choices? I think frequency, range, damage towards units should all be reduced, wildmen are just early game units for harassment after all

[Sir_Stig]

There is a limit to the number of poll options, so I tried to cover the main aspects of how I felt they could be adjusted down to their cost level. I think for now changing the damage type, and maybe the range as well would be a good fix, as we don't want to nerf them to the ground. I can try and make a new thread with a poll that goes into more detail ie damage only, damage+range, damage+attack rate, damage+range+attack rate, as I think the damage type being changed seems to be a given.

If all three get changed, I do think torch upgrade price might need to be adjusted, maybe 200 instead of 300.

[TiberiusOgden]

There is a limit to the number of poll options, so I tried to cover the main aspects of how I felt they could be adjusted down to their cost level. I think for now changing the damage type, and maybe the range as well would be a good fix, as we don't want to nerf them to the ground. I can try and make a new thread with a poll

I think that results of the current poll are obvious. So you can close current poll (and present results in the form of commentary here) and start new - for better clarity concentrate all thoughts about this topic only in one thread. 

By the way - very useful thread I think. 

[Sir_Stig]

Haha I made a billion options for this one, I think it should narrow it down a bit.

[goat stealer]

It's kind of funny that Mordor's evil men are so limited and are frequently outclassed by orcs and trolls while in Isengard we have the opposite happening.

I like the idea of implementing the torches so they're more dangerous to structures than units, with the exception of ents of course.

Just spitballing an idea here, but what if upon spawning the wildmen are equipped with standard clubs that have mediocre damage against everything and to circumvent this, you can choose one of two upgrades? One would equip them with weapons like axes, knives, ect. and make them more efficient against units (but not so much so to outclass uruks) while the other lights their clubs on fire and makes them more effective against structures and ents? Yes? No? Maybe so?

[Sir_Stig]

That could be an interesting comprimise.

[Sporf_McGorf]

Just spitballing an idea here, but what if upon spawning the wildmen are equipped with standard clubs that have mediocre damage against everything and to circumvent this, you can choose one of two upgrades? One would equip them with weapons like axes, knives, ect. and make them more efficient against units (but not so much so to outclass uruks) while the other lights their clubs on fire and makes them more effective against structures and ents?

A great idea. This would require a nerf of their current damage output with clubs and allow a far more useful unit to be available than the current Wildmen overall. Though, I wonder how often they will be considered a viable melee option unless their improved weapons damage output was comparable or better then that of unimproved Uruk-hai. I can see investing a little something extra in them being enough of a reason to give them an above average damage output with melee weapons. That would make them useful in the game as a supporting unit. If they are always bound to be weaker than Uruks even when upgraded, there's not much point in using them for anything but spam.