Lothlórien Balance Discussion

[Odysseus]

Well said Melkor. You have swung me into your favour.

[Elite KryPtik]

So I discovered something concerning today, while playing in multiplayer as Lorien. Lorien Warriors lose to basic orcs in 1 on 1 combat, and mine were even buffed with tainted land. On camp maps, loriens melee roster is so weak that they basically lose if their against a rush faction like Mordor or Rohan. Its ridiculously easy to shut them down early game, and since beornings can be trampled and do very little direct damage in bear form, it makes it quite easy to counter them as well. I think something should be done to address this.

[-DJANGO-]

Tested Lorien Sowrdsmen against Mordor Orcs with a  friend. They die without banner carrier after the 2. Battalion (interesting how much damage orcs do, huh?). With Banner Carrier they hold like 4 Battalions (Battalion after Battalion). So you see, Banner Carriers are the most important upgrade for Lorien. Though, i question why they have to die so easily.

Concerning Beornings: In my eyes they are/should be only support. They are strong enough in both forms. A Beorning House start is always risky, especially if you fight against a faction that counters Beornings well (like Rohan, Isen with their hunt-arrows).

[Elite KryPtik]

The problem is not the orcs damage, its the health of the Lorien Warriors. It is good to know the banner carriers help though, I will keep that in mind.

[Elendils Cousin 3. Grades]

The issue is known and we're on it.
A straight buff for lorien swordsmen will effect other matchups as well, though, and might give them quite the advantage against a faction like the dwarves. And it should go hand in hand with further tweaks to beorningers. Nevertheless, it is very clear that the Mordor-Lorien matchup is nearly impossible to win for Lorien atm because of this problem.

[Adrigabbro]

Yay, Great news!

[Odysseus]

I'm all in favour of giving more attention and importance to the Elven warriors and dimishing Beorningers to support role only.

However, I'm not sure if buffing the Lorien warriors is the thing to do. One of the top players in the Warhammer 40k Elite Mod forums once said: If you have an overpowered and an underpowered thing, always nerf the overpowered thing first, never first buff the underpowered one, because it will screw with more matchups that have already been proven to be right.

I concur with this, it's simply an issue of the default orcs still doing a bit too much damage compared to their cost. However, a straigt up nerf is usually not such a good idea. I would be in favour of decreasing their damage by 5-10% again but also decreasing their build time by a couple of seconds to get them on the field just a teensy bit earlier for ample compensation. Then, Beorningers are receiving some nerfs, while the Lorien warriors will be receiving some buffs.

Sounds good to me, all in all.

[Elendils Cousin 3. Grades]

One of the top players in the Warhammer 40k Elite Mod forums once said: If you have an overpowered and an underpowered thing, always nerf the overpowered thing first, never first buff the underpowered one

You talking about that guy?

Back to topic though: It's not that easy. Orcs vs Lorien swordsmen usually ends up in very few surviving elves on low hp, which is probably one of the reasons why they are considered to be too strong atm. Gondor swordsmen on the other hand don't have this problem at all, half of the batallion survives the fight even without using their formation. Nerfing orcs into the ground would just lead to Mordor getting roflstomped by Gondor, which is also not desirable. Just putting it out there that the matchup thing works both ways

[Elite KryPtik]

Glad to hear the problem is known by the team, never saw an indication of this on the English part of the beta forums.

Yes, your right about Gondor soldiers vs orcs, and that's not the only matchup. Nerfing orcs will really hurt Mordor against several other factions early game, especially Rohan, which is why I'm against it.

[Odysseus]

I was indeed talking about him, but it's not purely his quote. It came from HolyHammer first, IIRC, a long term DOW II pro player.

Anyway, I don't wish to nerf Orcs into the ground, but to me, Mordor rolls any faction with less trouble than the others. So, somewhere, Mordor is overperforming. While I agree that default Lorien Swordsmen are rather lacking at the moment, it is in my opinion not solely because of that, but rather because we compare nearly every situation to Mordor, because we are mostly aware that Mordor is pretty much the strongest faction at any stage of the game. When I observe Mordor play, I focus on the things that lead to breakthroughs in fights or to shifting tides. This is usually siege or the spam of a certain unit with most factions. In Mordor's case, it's both siege and orcs. Heroes give the spam some bulk, but most of the times, you can outspam enemy formations and buy enough time to replace your losses.

I am fine with giving the default troops of Lorien some attention, because they seem to be bypassed quite quickly, especially by Mirkwood's units, which seem to replace them, instead of working alongside them.

Regarding the Gondor Soldiers, I think it's quite obvious that they survive because they have so many models to spread the damage over. Oh and that Gondor simply rocks .

Nonetheless, we shall see what the tidings bring. I just wish to depromote the ''spam'' of units. If my suggestions make Orc spam less popular, so be it, even if it contradicts Mordor's design. The more diverse an army composition is, the more fun the game should be, if you ask me.

(Ps. @Elendils Cousin 3. Grades, do you follow Elite mod, per chance?)

[Hamanathnath]

I know this belongs in the Mordor balance thread, but I wanted to reply to Odysseus since he posted about Mordor here.  I'll try to keep it short

The more diverse an army composition is, the more fun the game should be, if you ask me.

Honestly, I would argue that Mordor is the most diverse Faction in the entire game.  Yes, you will see a lot of free orcs in the Early game of Mordor.  But pretty much every other faction only uses 2 or 3 units in there early game as well.  And later in the game, the amount of choices a Mordor player has is very large.  Cirith Ungol Orcs, a large roster of heroes, trolls, different variations of the standard orcs, the outpost specific units, a good roster of siege, Rhun and Harad Reinforcements, Orc Overseers, the lesser wraiths things that come from using Morgul Blade while Minas Morgul is influence by Sauron,  and those Werewolves Gorthuar can make from his fortress.  And that's not even counting what you decide to use Influence of Sauron on, which give so many choices on what you want to upgrade first.  I don't think any other faction compares to how many choices of units Mordor has.  Yes, you will see free orcs a lot, but free orcs by themselves can't win against the late game armies of the other factions.

As for improving Lorien Warriors, I completely agree.  They are too weak against the other stating units, which makes smaller maps very hard to deal with.  It also pretty much forces the player to spam Beornings because they are just better in pretty much every way early on.

[Sefie1999AD]

I've been thinking about Lothlorien's Ent units. They cost 900 credits, and what do you get with that money: a unit that is a battering ram and a catapult, can trample over enemies, has a wide melee attack that knocks enemies back, and they also get a speed boost when they see Lumber Mills or other Ents dying, so they can even be used like a temporary cavalry, to trample units and chase enemies. I'm not completely sure about this, but they seem to induce fear on enemy units too. Ents are indeed an intimidating force that needs to be taken seriously in the battlefield, or they will bring your base down in a few moments.

I was thinking about ways how I'd want to see the Ents changed. One choice would be to reduce their damage to heroes, so you have at least some units that can challenge Ents in close-range battles. Another choice would be to increase their cost. Some Elven units cost more than the Ents, but are a lot less threatening (*cough* Haldir ). Then I was thinking, why are the Ents such a threat in the first place? To counter them, you need fire arrows, catapults or strong (usually mid/lategame) heroes. The first two usually require you to upgrade your buildings. For some factions, Fire Arrows even require upgrading to level 3. Ents, on the other hand, could be recruited ever since you reach your first settlement. Money is the only limitation, but since every Lorien structure provides resources (honey harvesting provides double resources), my economy is usually very strong with Lothlorien anyway. When you get an Entmoot set up, Ents are available right away. Since other factions need to upgrade their structures to get catapult-class weapons, I was thinking of implementing the same limitation for Ents.

If you remember, Ents never want to be hasty, so it would make sense if they took a long time to get and couldn't be recruited right away. Therefore, I'm proposing an upgrade system for Entmoots:

Entmoot, level 1 (base level):
* Can recruit Quickbeam since he is considered very hasty
* Has an Ent gathering upgrade that raises the Entmoot to level 2

Entmoot, level 2:
* Gives access to ordinary Ents
* Has an advanced Ent gathering upgrade that raises the Entmoot to level 3

Entmoot, level 3:
* Gives access to Treebeard
* Maybe has a passive ability that decreases the build time for Ents, or extinguishes fire from nearby Ents, or something like that

This way, you'll have more time to prepare for an Ent rush, and you aren't as forced to tech-rush to fire arrows and fire catapults to counter the Ents. To compensate for the Ents being delayed, they could perhaps gain a small armor boost, to make them even sturdier. From a strategic point of view, this will make scouting more important: if you find an Entmoot under construction, you'll have all the time to prepare for an Ent rush, but if you fail to scout, the Ents will be more dangerous than ever before.

[Sawman]

I personally don't think Ents need a nerf if anything they need a buff of some sort. Have you tested them against pikes? Its the same result as if you were fighting trolls they almost instantly die because they try to trample and fire arrows for most factions are easy enough to get it might take a little time but the pike men can hold them off until you do. And another thing to add if you have two or more hero's they can take down an Ent with ease and myself I almost never buy Ents because of these weaknesses and high cost, there are better things to buy so to speak.

Thanks   

[Gandalf7000]

I agree with  Sefie1999AD just about the last thing of upgrading entmoot. I think that they don't need to be nerfed but upgrading entmoot step by step would be nice improvement.

[Sefie1999AD]

Just to clarify my point, I didn't eventually propose that the Ents would get directly nerfed. On the 2nd paragraph of my last post, I meant I initially wanted to see the Ents nerfed, but when I started to think why the Ents are so problematic, I realized that the problem isn't that they're strong, the problem is that they're available too early. As a result, I proposed that instead of a direct nerf, I'd like to see an Entmood upgrade system. That way, the Ents wouldn't be available as early, but the setback would be compensated with other things (for example, higher recruitment speed on an upgraded Entmoot, maybe better armor for Ents etc).

Have you tested them against pikes? Its the same result as if you were fighting trolls they almost instantly die because they try to trample and fire arrows for most factions are easy enough to get it might take a little time but the pike men can hold them off until you do.

I assumed the Ents can simply use their close-range attack to knock back the pikes, but if they can work as a decent counter to hold off the Ents until fire arrows are available, then that's good to know.