Lothlórien Balance Discussion

[Odysseus]

Good day gents,

Been a while since Lothlorien had something to discuss about.

I wanted to ask, does anybody by how much damage Legolas' Hawk Strike was reduced?

I remember personally posting that it did insane amounts of damage, more than Aragorn's knife throw and I had suggested a nerf.

However now, it seems that Legolas' Hawk Strike does very little damage by default. I fear it has been overnerfed, can anyone confirm?

[kreso]

it seems that Legolas' Hawk Strike does very little damage by default

1+

While he prepare for Hawk Strike, he can shot 3 times his normal attacks. So a bit useless.
Maybe make tha skill usefull against monster or heroes?

[Tirano]

I think that heroes should have more resistance to eagles, today i was playing against elves and eagles or Radagast mounted kill 3 heroes in a few second, is a lot of damage even when my heroes are in a high lvl.

[Hamanathnath]

So I've had a lot of time to use Legolas due to the amount of times I've tried to help record a certain map for a certain YouTube channel, and I think I can say that Legolas seems to be a little underpowered right now.  And I'm not just talking about Hawk Strike.  He seems to have trouble fulfilling both his Mass Slayer Role, and his minor Hero Killing Role.  It is hard to say exactly what is wrong with Legolas without comparing him to someone else, and unfortunately, he is very unique, so there really isn't a perfect hero to compare him to.  But for the sake of this post, I will compare him to someone similar in price and role, and just happens to be a friend of his.....

Legolas vs Gimli

And no, I don't mean actually who would win in a fight.  I just am comparing their roles for the factions they are on, and how well they fulfil those roles. 

Comparing their Standard attack, they are pretty well balanced.  Gimli does more damage, but Legolas has a ranged attack with a higher attack speed.  I don't see a problem there.  The best thing about Legolas right now is his Incredible Range and Attack Speed.

But Unfortunately, this is where the balance comes to an end in my opinion.  Their abilities really heavily favor Gimli.    Let's go through them, shall we?

Knife Fighter is really supposed to Highlight Legolas's Mass Slayer Role, as well as his Hero Killing role somewhat..  He deals higher damage and hits multiple enemies at once, at the cost of having to go to melee combat.  The problem is Legolas doesn't have a lot of health, and the 20% armor increase doesn't make help this.  Not only that, but Legolas really sticks out while using it, really highlighting that he takes too much damage while using it.  As a result, this ability become a huge risk in an Army vs Army situation.  The Armor bonus needs to be higher if this Ability is going to be worth using.

Hawk Strike deals low damage, and hits a small amount of people.  Am I missing something here?  Because this seems to be blatantly obvious how underpowered it is in my opinion if it did a lot more damage, then I wouldn't mind it not hitting not many enemies, but it doesn't.  It really is a waste of an ability right now, not helping either of his roles.  Meanwhile, Gimli is getting a Leap that does more damage, hits more enemies, and sends launches everyone it hits.  Even 1 basic attack from Galadirel does about the same, if not more then this ability. 

Now the rest of Legolas's abilities are good right now, the only debatable one being Train Archers due to it not fitting his role, but if Knife Fighter and Hawk Strike are improved, then this won't be a big problem.  But the problem is he gets them so late, and due to his first 2 abilities underperforming, it making Legolas not worth the buy.

Gimli greatly outperforms Legolas right now.  Both Leap and Stubbornness are great Mass Slaying abilities, and Axe Throw, Slayer, and his high health making him a lot better then Legolas at hero killing.  And I wouldn't say that Gimli is too good right now, because he does cost a lot of money, and is very much able to die. 

So I would love to see both Knife Fighter and Hawk Strike improved.

[Adrigabbro]

I don't mean to agree or disagree with your point, but I think his Knife Fighter ability is not meant to be used in an Army vs Army situation but rather is an "emergency" ability in case  enemies reach out to Legolas.

[Hamanathnath]

But that is the problem.  Knife Fighter doesn't make Legolas strong enough to hold his ground.  He will still die very quickly to most other heroes.  I guess you can you it for the Armor bonus just to run away, but is obviously not what the ability is for.

[Adrigabbro]

I do agree on that, it does not make Legolas as strong as it should be to survive.

[Elendils Cousin 3. Grades]

Most other heroes should beat him 1v1, even when he uses his knives. How are you supposed to kill him if it were the other way around? It's an ability to slay units surrounding him in melee combat, and the armor boost is nice when you have to run. With his incredible range Legolas shouldn't be caught by enemy heroes anyway.

Hawk Strike could use a buff, I agree to that, but I wouldn't raise the initial damage too much (I'd like to see a buff against flying units while we're at it... I'd like that for all sniping abilities btw, such as Istari Light or Faramir's special shot). I'd rather change the aoe pattern to something more consistent, the new pierce-enemies-thing is not nearly as intuitive as the classic Wizard Blast/Jump.

[Odysseus]

Aye, well I also posted about this several times. I remember when in Edain 4.2, when Lothlorien was first released, the original Hawk Strike could bring down the average hero's health to less than 50% from full health. It was insane. I think I was the first to post about it too. Now, I got my wish, it was nerfed. However, it was not only nerfed, it was overhauled. I don't understand why? Legolas was a classic BFME I/II hero with a classic moveset, just like Gandalf. Why was this ability changed? Legolas' mass slaying capabilities lies in his amazing default attack and attack speed as well as his level 10 arrow wind ability, not a splitting Hawk Strike.

I would return the old Hawk Strike, and adjust its damage similarly to Gimli's axe throw and Aragorn's knife throw.

I think Legolas' Knife Fighter is fine. It's an emergency self-defense ability, just like with Tauriel.

Also, I agree with Elendil. All these snipe abilities should be improved somewhat. I think the bug with the not-scaling magic abilities will fix that though, no?

[Elendils Cousin 3. Grades]

Just to clarify: The bug that Skeeverboy mentioned only impacts the damage type MAGIC, nothing else. It caused the issue that the damage of Eomer's spear throw increased with each level (as intended), but the Wizard Blast did not, to name an example. Legolas Hawk Strike deals HERO_RANGED afaik.

[Hamanathnath]

Most other heroes should beat him 1v1, even when he uses his knives. How are you supposed to kill him if it were the other way around? It's an ability to slay units surrounding him in melee combat, and the armor boost is nice when you have to run. With his incredible range Legolas shouldn't be caught by enemy heroes anyway.

I understand that increasing his armor by too much would make him too hard to kill.  But I don't exactly understand why Legolas should lose to most heroes in a 1v1.  He is supposed to be partly a Hero Killer.  So I don't know what the purpose of Knife Fighter is.  His health isn't high enough to withstand being attacked too much, making going into melee combat a bad idea.  So why ever even let your enemies come near Legolas?  I guess if your enemy is mounted you have to active it and stand your ground, but you will most like lose in that situation anyways.  And as you said, the Armor boost is nice when running away, but the ability is called Knife Fighter, not Knife Escaper.   This ability is clearly not ment for running away.

[Odysseus]

Just to clarify: The bug that Skeeverboy mentioned only impacts the damage type MAGIC, nothing else.

Woops, I knew that. I should have been clearer. I was referencing magic abilities that snipe.

Just the sniping abilities in the game, could potentially scale with level. It should never insta kill of course, but neither should it fall off in worth the further the game progresses.

[Hamanathnath]

I wouldn't mind seeing Sniping abilities dealing more damage as you level up, though as you said, it would have to be a small amount, so they are not doing too much damage. 

[Tirano]

the eagles make insane damage to heroes, i think it is too much, they need a nerf in that aspect

[Hamanathnath]

I don't agree Eagle damage against Heroes is too much.  Getting Eagles does cost 7 power points, which isn't cheap at all, and they have a short time limit.  I think it is reasonable for them to do the damage they do now.  Also remember that while any flying unit is attacking a Hero, they do not deal damage to anything around the Hero.