Mordor Balance Discussion

[Elite KryPtik]

I don't understand your post.

[ringbearer]

Elite, i would suggest a replay with isengard againts mordor if you can

[Elite KryPtik]

Happy to.

[Elite KryPtik]

I have a few thoughts about Mordor myself, about things of theirs that I do think are too strong.

I think I have already mentioned it, but I agree that I think Barricade should cost 3 points. Perhaps a swap to make Easterlings 2 points? Or you could make Arrow Volley 1 point.

Additionally, I think that the Cirith Ungol units and structure are a little bit cheap considering how strong they are. Once a player has a few slave farms, which is all people make, you can get Black Uruks and Halberdiers for a very low cost. I think that these 2 and the Barracks itself at least should receive a price increase.

Finally, I believe the Fire Arrows buff is far too strong in its current form. A Mordor player can make all of their towers, make a battle tower, get the fire arrows, and then destroy the tower, essentially only paying 250 resources to have Fire Arrows on every on of their sentry towers. If we look at other factions: Isengard must pay 400 per tower, Dwarves need a 1500 resource upgrade, Lorien need a 1500(or maybe 2000, can't remember) resource upgrade. How is it fair that Mordor pays such a low amount to get upgraded defensive towers? I personally think that Influence of Sauron on a battle tower should only UNLOCK the upgrade, which should then have to be purchased on each tower for 250-300 resources per tower.

[Hamanathnath]

Finally, I believe the Fire Arrows buff is far too strong in its current form. A Mordor player can make all of their towers, make a battle tower, get the fire arrows, and then destroy the tower, essentially only paying 250 resources to have Fire Arrows on every on of their sentry towers. If we look at other factions: Isengard must pay 400 per tower, Dwarves need a 1500 resource upgrade, Lorien need a 1500(or maybe 2000, can't remember) resource upgrade. How is it fair that Mordor pays such a low amount to get upgraded defensive towers? I personally think that Influence of Sauron on a battle tower should only UNLOCK the upgrade, which should then have to be purchased on each tower for 250-300 resources per tower.

I agree more or less.  I think that it is too easy to get right now, because of its extremely low price.  But my main problem is, like you said, how people just sell the tower right after they use Influence of Sauron.  I'm pretty sure that no other building under the Influence of Sauron keeps their upgrade if you demolish it, but I'd have to test that.  So my proposal would be to keep it as it is now, but make the player need to keep the Tower for the Sentry Towers to keep their fire arrow upgrade.  This would make the player have one build plot occupied by the tower, slightly hindering them.

Considering your other 2 proposals, I don't think they are much of a problem.  I see a lot of people going for Rhun Reinforcements and Shelob still, so it's not like Barricade is too good.  And hopefully, if Trolls get an upgrade, we will see more people going for Slaughter Houses instead of Slave Farms, making those units not very cheap.

[Adrigabbro]

Finally watched both replays ! 

I won't pointlessly repeat what Django and Odysseus said, even though I agree with most of their arguments. Still, I think you clearly demonstrated two points:
- You can't win with nothing else but Mordor orcs.
- Gamling with Theoden banishment does kick some ass. 
More seriously,  you proved to be a skilled Rohan player and also that Rohan defends itself quite good against Mordor.

Now, I don't exactly recall what I said in the first discussions, but I'd like to defend my "how to win as Mordor" guide, along with two replays of mine. That's basically what Sawman did in his second game, but with "cleaner plays" (sorry for the phrase, I'm not blaming him, but as you pointed out there were understandable reasons behind some misplays).
Start with Gorbag and an Orc barrack. Build as many Slave farms as you can, but keep one spot free for a Cirith Ungol barrack as soon as possible. Build a second Orc barrack then rush a Nazgul. Last but not least: play aggressively.

I'm attaching the replays (sorry for the titles, had no idea what to write  ^^).
/!\ Please read the following lines before watching them /!\
Yes I know, both replays are 3v3. Yes I know, my barracks haven't been rushed in the first two minutes. But I think they can still make a point for different reasons:
1) Strong players are involved (Django, Trapper, Woppader)
2) The second game is three 1v1s with three Mordor and each Mordor wins pretty easily their match-up. (map: Rhun)
As far as I'm concerned, I think I have failed my early game (Cirith Ungol built way too early, poor management of my units, base not filled up fast enough) but I have still managed to repel Iron Hills quite easily.
As for the first game, only the 15 first minutes are relevant, but it's more to show my vision of a near-to-perfect early game as Mordor and therefore not really to prove anything. After 15/20 minutes, the rest of the replay is pointless regarding the discussion.

So, you are probably starting to wonder what's the point of this neverending comment: it's about discussing what is really strong with Mordor supposing regular orcs are fine.
Well, first, every player agreed that Cirith Ungol orcs are too strong for their cost. The replays back this up. As you pointed out, an increase in their price/the price of the building wouldn't be too much.
Secondly, you can get a Nazgul very quickly and some factions (not Rohan I guess ^^) have hard time against them ; I'm mostly thinking about Dwarves and Elves.
Finally, I believe the four spells Eye of Sauron, Tainted Land, Barricade and Terror of Cirith Ungol can pressure too much compared to other factions ealry spells. Plus Mordor is able to reduce their cooldown by quite a significant amount. Someone proposed a few pages earlier to increase the cooldown of most spells by 10%. Concerning the Barricade, the building can fire four arrows at once (because four archers): it is more powerful than Gondor/Dwarven Lone Tower but requires 2 points. A swap with the reinforcements of Rhun would be a nicea idea imo.

Let me kow what you think about all this.

PS: By the way, if you fully watch the first replay, you will see that I shamefully take down Lorien fortress with a lame Ram rush, causing Woppader to be instantly defeated. It's a big disadvantage compared to other factions. It is also very annoying as Lorien. Perhaps something could be done about that?

PS2: I haven't asked authorizations for these replays. I assume nobody gives a damn but if not, let me know and I will delete them.

EDIT: forgot the replays aswell!!  Fixed it.

[Elite KryPtik]

I'm not going to watch the replays. The only point that I set out to make was that regular orcs are NOT too strong and do not require a nerf. There are other aspects of Mordor that could be changed and refined, but in my opinion the orcs are fine as they are. I personally think that the debuff of the Nazgul is far too strong once you have several of them on the field, in addition to the points that I have mentioned in earlier posts here. I'm glad you agree about orcs

I Also agree that the cooldown on Mordor spells could be a bit higher by default, or the bonus granted by Tribute Camps could perhaps be lowered a bit. In addition, I will get getting a couple of Isengard vs Mordor replays as requested by somebody earlier, they should be up later on today. I'll be playing against Haman, who is far better than Sawman at playing as Mordor and actually enjoys it, so stay tuned for that

[Melkor Bauglir]

I Also agree that the cooldown on Mordor spells could be a bit higher by default, or the bonus granted by Tribute Camps could perhaps be lowered a bit.

I don't really like this idea. This is basically like weakening a faction for something that should be a strength -e.g. Rohan also doesn't have cheaper default upgrades, just because they have no upgrade-discount. So slower spell recharge as a "punishment" for a specific (kind of) discount just seems wrong. Also, Mordor certainly doesn't get this for free, because the spell-recharge-bonus is actually the only discount in the entire game which is also weaker per structure if you only build only a few of them (all other economic structures start with 0 / 10 discount, the tribute post with 0 / 5, which makes them only viable when completely focussing on this, therefore having higher siege costs (and technically really expensive trolls, what of course nobody notices because they aren't built in general )).
Therefore: Considering what small change made Mordor too strong / strong enough, I would say we don't need that big of a change. Increasing the barricade's cost by one already takes away some of Mordor's pressure and maybe decreasing the attack damage of orc warriors by 10% does, too. However I don't think, that Mordor needs a nerf for the troll-buff -this essentially just makes them viable and there is no way you can simultaneously spam CU-troops, heroes, domain troops and trolls while also building siege and orcs. It just adds some versatility, but no real direct strength (considering how underused trolls are now and also considering, that supporting trolls economically actually weakens some of your other options because both domain orcs, normal orcs and (really importat!) CU-troops do not have such a high discount anymore!

Greetings
Melkor Bauglir

[Elite KryPtik]

I don't understand what you mean, we were never saying trolls needed to be nerfed, we were saying they needed to be buffed.

As promised, here is an Isengard vs Mordor game. Now unfortunately in this match, my early game failed, so you never get to see the full power of Wulfgar and Dunlands Hordes. What this replay does once again demonstrate is that Mordor can certainly be beaten, and orc spam is not enough to defeat an enemy. I was pushed all the way back inside my base, but by simply making towers and berserkers, and using my powers carefully and effectively, I stop multiple siege attempts and finally push out of my base and reclaim map control. Now unfortunately at this point Haman had to go for dinner, but the match was already lost for him, a fully upgraded Isengard army is nearly unbeatable for Mordor. 1 thing to note, for this match we said to make free orc infantry only, so he does not use Easterlings. However, I do not believe this would have made a lot of difference, and nor would archers.

Now, a couple of points are brought to bear by this replay. Again, weakness of trolls is demonstrated, but 2 new things to consider also popped up. The reason that I am unable to get my Dunland spam going is because a single Nazgul is able to literally pretty much fully kill 2 battalions of Wildmen by trampling. This is insane, even Rohan heroes do not have such powerful trample. I know that in the last patch the Nazgul were getting stuck very easily, but now they are too strong. The trample deceleration should be increased for each single Nazgul, excluding the hero horde.

Additionally, another thing that I think is really unfair is that Sauron, Annatar form cannot be attacked at all. It is one thing to gain temporary invincibility, or a map wide truce via Armistice, but he can literally walk up to a whole army of your men and stand there right now. Its ridiculous! I think that by default you should be able to attack him, and he should have an ability to make him invincible for a short time, so people can't just sit him in the middle of your army and spy on you.

I'm not going to bother getting a 2nd replay, I don't especially love playing Isengard as it is. Understand however that if your enemy does not rush a Nazgul, or if you are at least able to get Wulfgar and 4 battalions of Dunlendings on the field, Isengard can easily match Mordor early game. Haman is one of the only people I have seen utilize Nazgul trample so effectively(and I'm not ashamed to admit that I learned a thing or 2 about managing Nazgul in this game ) and most other people can be expected to be lower in skill than Haman, so nerfing Mordor orcs would just make it harder for medium tiered players. Hope the replay is entertaining and informative

[Melkor Bauglir]

I don't understand what you mean, we were never saying trolls needed to be nerfed, we were saying they needed to be buffed.

Wait, what? I was referring to LoM's post where he was talking about that there would some compensation needed for some of our ideas for buffing trolls (as this is indeed a buff to one of Mordor's possible playstyles). And I personally think that for this buff in particular, no rebalancing nerf is needed (maybe there is in general because of Mordor's strengths, but not for a possible troll buff). Is it clearer now?

Greetings
Melkor Bauglir

PS: Actually I am wondering about how big the language barrier is just affecting my comments. (Which is a really euphemistic way of saying: I have no idea how wrong my grammer is! )

[Elite KryPtik]

Well the whole time I have been advocating a straight health buff for trolls and some more resistance vs arrows, without a cost increase. Your English seems ok to me.

[The_Necromancer0]

Additionally, another thing that I think is really unfair is that Sauron, Annatar form cannot be attacked at all. It is one thing to gain temporary invincibility, or a map wide truce via Armistice, but he can literally walk up to a whole army of your men and stand there right now. Its ridiculous! I think that by default you should be able to attack him, and he should have an ability to make him invincible for a short time, so people can't just sit him in the middle of your army and spy on you.

I don't think the team will change it, it's one of the key features of Sauron, they've already optimized it with the "can't turn into Annatar in front of enemies". Instead I think what could be suggested is that the charisma should be stronger with a smaller armor debuff and should also affect buildings. Also for a player using Gorthaur as a scout would be quire disadvantageous considering all the power that they are wasting.

[Elite KryPtik]

I have seen Sauron become Annatar right in front of my troops several times now.

[The_Necromancer0]

In that case that's either a bug, a description error or the distance from which unit needs to be from Sauron it too small

[Spacetyrant93]

I'm not sure this should be posted here, so please excuse me if it's not the right place...

Sorry guys, but am I the only one that was baffed when a batallion of Palantir-Guards managed to take 3/4 hits from Sauron with the Ring before they died, and managed to get 1/4 of his health gone? I understand he needs to be nerfed and not OP and has a healing ability, but...
May it be that I am too used to OP Sauron, but still, this kinda seems weak for the Lord of the Rings.