Heroes - how powerful should they be?

[Gandalf The Gray]

And when a Masslayer is a tank, and massslayer+tank is to strong

No. All players focus the masssylayer, because he has AoE. If all focus him he will die in short time.
Edit: So I agree Gandalf the gray.

thanks thats my point

[Odysseus]

...Or you can reduce the health of troops as Lord of Mordor just told us, that's the other side of the coin . Also worth a  try, methinks. Just watched a pvp game on youtube where upgraded Uruk-hai were tanking Word of Power a couple of times. As an example. I could post the link to show you how little Word of Power seems to do against a fully upgraded Uruk-Hai army, for those that want to see?

[ringbearer]

...Or you can reduce the health of troops as Lord of Mordor just told us, that's the other side of the coin . Also worth a  try, methinks. Just watched a pvp game on youtube where upgraded Uruk-hai were tanking Word of Power a couple of times. As an example. I could post the link to show you how little Word of Power seems to do against a fully upgraded Uruk-Hai army, for those that want to see?

DO it!

[Odysseus]

Okay, here goes

It's Isilpro's account on Youtube, since he seems to be the only one to deliver above-average level pvp play.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=susvVFgxKo8

It's quite a long video. The first Word of Power can be seen around the 45:40 minute mark. Tell me your thoughts after seeing all the Words of Power.

[Doctor Who]

As some have already said, we will try units with 20% less health in the next version to see how that feels and how people enjoy it. Do you think heroes should also get 20% less health alongside that? Or do you think they're already fragile enough?

Hello,
Yes, i find that heroes should get a lower heealth, too.  But maybe not -20%,  for the first try -10%.
One question : Will the hero abilities also be weaker ? Would be interesting to see units with lower life but same Spell  and hero abiliy- strength.

We've also been thinking about increasing hero armor against archers, because archer focus fire seems to kill heroes too easily at the moment. Unlike melee, there's not much you can do against it, if you keep your hero surrounded by defenders the enemy can still focus him with the entirety of his archers. I think it's more interesting if you actually have to get close to heroes, then it becomes a question of how safe you can keep yours and how much risk you take with them.

I dont find that the hero armor against archers should be increased, because how do you should counter a Word of power from Gandalf when he rides. If the archers focus a hero than take him back a little bit and maybe the opponent dont pay attention and the archers run forward, also if he focus my hero my army can fight without archers damage.   I am against that safely hero gaming, heroes should stand out with their abilities not their armor.

[Elite KryPtik]

Well that was an entertaining video, if a long one. It proves how weak Gandalf's Word of Power is, and also how painfully long it takes to get him to level 10. It also proves something I have been saying since day 1, both Mordor and Isengard are extremely OP in late game, and cannot be beaten, even if the Rohan player in this match sucked, and Gondor could have played better too. Anyways that's a separate issue.

If you're going to do a global -20% HP on all units, don't nerf heroes again. I think that the reduction in health for units would be perfectly balanced with the current hero health. I would also support giving heroes a little more resistance against ranged attacks, maybe like 25%, not enough to be OP.

[Gandalf The Gray]

i think the best thing to do here is to buff heroes skills

[Adrigabbro]

Buffing heroes armor against fire arrows is ok, but please don't increase their resistance against regular arrows. Standard archers barely do no damage to heroes.

[Skeeverboy]

i think the best thing to do here is to buff heroes skills

When you buffed skills more heroes are to op. In 3.8.1 was Word of Power not allowed, because it was a all killed klick to win skill.
And when you have strong spells you can make easy this:
Use Word of Power, let Gandalf die and buy him again. When skills buffed you must just do that and this is boring.

Isengard are extremely OP in late game

Don't let Isengard come in the Late Game. Isengard is easy to defeat in 1v1.

It's Isilpro's account on Youtube, since he seems to be the only one to deliver above-average level pvp play.

Nothing against Isil, but he isn't a very good player. His game wasn't very good, he let Isengard come in the Lategame and looses against a multiplayer beginner. (John Doe) And he has just spammed Towerguards.

[Gandalf The Gray]

but he means that the word of power dont do shit

[Skeeverboy]

When the Word of Power can kill a 15000 Ressources Isengard army it is op. At the moment it kill all not upped Units and do heavy damage against upped units in big area.
But Isengard has in the Late Late Game (when you let it come to this) Units which are level 5 and have more as 1000 Livepoints and Armour, so that they will overlive.

[Odysseus]

I know asymmetric balance is quite interesting and it makes the factions more unique, but I still think every faction should be able to win in whatever stage of the game, just that chances of doing so are different depending on the stages.

I mean to say that if Rohan's biggest chance of winning is in early-game, which is fine by me, it should however not mean that for some specific reason you would not be able to win in late-game because of Isengard and Mordor's in late-game superiority, nay, supremacy and dominance even.

I say not that it is impossible, but it is kind of the idea behind that I find rather strange and you seem to be okay with that. The only thing with Isengard that I am not too fond of is the Uruk-captain upgrade. Yes it is expensive, but instant level 5? Are you sure that's reasonable?

Overall, I also favour 1v1, since it has better pacing and more opportunities for build orders and micro, but 2v2 is also a decent way of playing. I say the well-balanced games have an excellent 1v1 and a good 2v2 experience. Above, it becomes a myriad of exponents and well, it becomes impossible to control.

That said, Word of Power is one of the few natural abilities that Gondor has that, when surrounded by a huge force in late-game, you can force your way out. Naturally, it should not instantly kill an upgraded army, but it should at least force your enemy to retreat and let him/her tend to the wounded, so to speak. It did not do that at all in the video, in fact, his scattered troops just attacked Gandalf anew, instead of retreating and regrouping. I think this should be corrected at the very least.

In my opinion, there are simple and hard ways to approach this issue with Word of Power, but the 3 most probable alternatives would be:
1. Increase power, but also increase cooldown.
2. Decrease power, but also decrease cooldown.
3. Decrease overall health of units, which is thus going to be tested.

I know Isil is not the best, but I gotta deal with what I got when it comes to watching material. I'd love to see you play (Skeeverboy) more, more replays or even youtube videos yourself, so I can see you rectify a similar situation.

That would be great, sir Skeeverboy, since I would learn that way .

[Gandalf The Gray]

thats a good ide i think word of power should be powerful because its hard to get and have a longest CD for it to be balanced awesome idea

[Whale Sharku]

I agree with everything Odysseus wrote.
(How could you honestly not agree with someone of that name? )

The overall unit health may be lowered a little in the near future, and it may be extremely important. You see, asymmetric balance depends in a very basic way on the question in how many "layers" a game challenges the player:

In a one-dimensional game where ressources are the only thing that matters, Isengart will always be assured to win (assuming both players are similar in their skill) which was not entirely true in 3.8 for some very aggressive rushes could technically stop it, but there were little to no other possibilities to do anything against it so that's pretty one-dimensional after all. Even if you smoothen out the asymmetric balance until Isengart is just a little richer than all the others, it would still have dominated.

On the other hand, in a game that not only asks you to earn more money than your opponent but also do the right (and delicate!) things with it, chances to beat the enemy regardless of asymmetric balance will rise automatically and drastically. Why? Because now, being poor doesn't automatically imply that you can't win anymore, because there is more to it - it could be that you make better use out of your spellbook, for example.

And this second case will occur once all units have their life reduced again, because then all the other layers to the game (like the already mentioned spells) will be stronger in comparison to them and have a bigger impact.

So - while all this may sound much more complicated - it is also much more effective than all the balance tools in the world when it comes to making an asymmetrical match more interesting.

Btw this channel is entirely in german but maybe you can still learn from it:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD0txRsU9vypWQKQyUjaUhQ

[Odysseus]

Come now, gentlemen. You flatter me . (Ps. Glad you like my name)

I am Dutch, so I can understand German to some degree. However, it seems it is mostly 3.8.1, which is rather unfortunate, since I prefer 4.0 for its distinct playstyle compared to the more traditional BFME II playstyle. Nevertheless, I will give it a try, thank you kindly!