Lothlórien Balance Discussion

[Hamanathnath]

I am not saying that the porcupine formation is a bad formation.  In the right hands, it works very well.  I am saying that there are better options for the Palace Guards.  And for the people who like the porcupine formation, it can be moved to the Lorien Pikeguard.  Every other elite pikeman unit in the game so far has something other then the porcupine formation and/or something that makes them unique then a normal pike unit. palace guards are the only elite pikes that don't, besides the out of combat heal at lvl 2, but all elves have that.

Because Palace Guards are not able to get heavy armour, a formation that give them armour would be very helpful to them.  I do not think the unit is bad now, it seems like they are missing something to make them versatile like other elite pike units.



As for CG-Guardians, I actually like the concept of them as "Single Target Killers".  It sounds interesting.  At their current state, I don't mind CG-Guardians, maybe a new ability would help, but they are not in a place where a change is completely needed In my opinion.

As I stated a few posts ago, Tears of the Valar is not very useful without the stun spellbook power (which i still don't know the name of, sorry about that ), so lowering the delay in the beggining would make it more useful.  It could be stronger too, but not too strong so it can kill an entire endgame army if the stun spell is used as well, because as far as i know, there is no way to escape the stun spell until it is over.  The other 10 point spell is good enough in my opinion.

I personally think beorning should not have trample immunity, but there seems to be alot of people who think they should have it.  I do think however, beornings should get a skill from leveling up.  Maybe something that makes you immune to trample, among other effects, would be cool.  I'd have to think about it though.  I also think the Bear form melee damage isn't high enough, but Idk yet if that should be changed.

[CragLord]

Concerning CG-guardians:

In German forum they made the suggestion, that they get the ability of the mirkwood archers additionally and that mirkwood archers get an shackle-shoot instead.

That isn't exactly true. We were talking about giving this rapid fire ability to the Galadhrim in an attempt to rework certain Lothlorien units. Actually it was completely the opposite way arround, CG-guardians were supposed to shoot really slow, but deal very high damage, making them strong versus heroes, monsters or single-units in general, but rather weak against spam. (It was a pretty long concept, so I won't translate it here. Basically it was about giving every Lothlorien unit a specific place, without redundancies and without some units replacing others. It wasn't totally accepted though. )
Apart from that: Do the CG-guardians really need another combat ability? I'm asking this, because they essentially have the same role as regular Lothlorien-archers, don't enter the game earlier or later than fully upgraded archers, do not cost any more money than fully upgraded archers and all three together actually take up 360 CP which is a lot for a single unit. Therefore I think that too strong / too flexible CG-guardians would make Lothlorien-archers kind of redundant in LG. (Just the result of 5 different archer units in one faction. )
E.g. in the German forum we were taling about giving them permanent stealth (even while firing and away from trees). This together with high single target damage would make them an excellet sniper-unit.

Greetings
Melkor Bauglir

I didn't understand you. But as heroic unit they deserve new ability maybe? And how can 3 battalions to make redudant standard range unit? They are only three in count, and in late game it is supposed that stronger units are on battlefield, so I really don't understand your statement about heroic unit makes redundant standard unit in late game.
Also giving them stealth as permanent stuff is maybe out of place?
It is supposed that they have something to hide in, in those "consistency" terms trees.
Isn't better to give them some activation ability for dealing with those heavy armored units? We got similar situation there, and CG guardians no matter of their high base damage didn't do so much against heavy armor/formation towerguards. So maybe as they are considered as toughest range heroic unit, they should have ability to deal in their favor in those situations?
 

[™Æ¿® Aragorn £ ‡™]

I got an idea for Mirkwood Palace Guards                                                                             How about a formation which requires they have forged blades purchased?                            For this formation it would be: +100% armor, -75% damage.(75% instead of 50% as their forged blades are 3x the damage)                                                                              It is basically trading forged blades for heavy armor.                               

[Adrigabbro]

I'm a little late in the discussion but here's my opinion, better late than never!

As a whole, I think Lorien has a good late game and is not overwhelmed by other factions: silverthorn arrows do enough damage, Ealendril's ship is an awesome 10 PP spell (perhaps Tears of the Valars could use some buff, dunno), Beornings are in a great spot right now and Galadhrims would have wrecked Tower Guards etc... for the same reasons it has already been discussed.

However I do agree with  you on some points:
~> I don't see why CG guardians don't have a second ability as almost every other hero battalion. They can be killed very easily for they are archers and that's why they should have some great ability at high levels to make up for.
~> Siege weapons are in a too good spot right now: even though I appreciate the last change to make them able to do decent damage to units, it was a little bit too big. Also, there is still that invulnerability to flying units...
~> Palace Guards could use some personal stance and be able to wear heavy armor. I would even say Mirkwood swordsmen and archers should also wear heavy armor, but I understand not everybody agrees on that.
~> Grimbeorn could use some area of effect and/or a price reduction.

[Lord of Mordor]

Lots of good discussion here, so I'll just jump right in

The counter for siege units could either be your own archers with silverthorns and longbows (Lorien archers with longbows or Caras Galadhon guardians have range similiar to that of most siege units), or Beornings or Lorien swordsmen with their speed ability. I agree it is more difficult to counter them without straight-up cavalry, but I wouldn't say it's impossible. Some have already said that catapults in general have too much health at the moment, maybe we could lower it a bit?


Catapults are meant to be effective against armies that are clumped tightly together, but they shouldn't be "sniping" single units and heroes. That is something we will adjust. One thing I'm unsure about is how good catapults should be against monsters and other catapults. The thing is that catapults are the only way a fortress might be able to defend itself against other catapults (and thus force the attacker to bring more that one single catapult or Ent to bring down a fully upgraded fortress because you need superior firepower). On the other hand, one could argue that a fortress shouldn't in fact have defenses against siege weapons. What do you guys think?

Ents are actually way better than trolls in every way except speed (more health, more damage, can be used as a catapult), so they should cost more CP. However, we could increase the flame damage they need to take before they start burning.


The Palace Guards are not meant to work the same way the Tower Guard does. Tower Guards are very much a special case, they're the ultimate unit for holding a defensive line: Good against cavalry and thanks to their shield wall they can take a lot of damage from other unit types as well. They are designed this way because Gondor is supposed to be one of the best factions at holding heavily defended lines. Lorien by design is not supposed to be able to do that as well as Gondor. That is why the Palace Guard is more specialized against cavalry. Note that they are actually significantly better at stopping cavalry than the Tower Guard: Their porcupine stops cavalry short immediately and their forged blades grant them twice the damage of Gondor's.  As such an archer-focussed faction, I think Lorien is actually better served with a pike unit that is fully focussed on killing cavalry than an allrounder like the Tower Guard. And from what I've seen in that replay the Palace Guard did their job quite well: Whenever the Rohan player had his riders charge into your pikemen, they just got murdered.

So even if we replace the Porcupine formation, it would be with a specialized anti-cavalry ability, not a massive armor boost like the Tower Guard have. However, this would mean that Lorien would no longer have access to the Porcupine. The normal pikemen won't get it because we don't want to overload regular units with more than one active ability (their speed boost already requires more attention than many other abilities to be used well). I felt the Porcupine with its ability to stop even large groups of cavalry was something that Lorien really needed. If you think it could easily be removed from the faction, we could of course give the Palace Guard something else.

As for how Lorien should deal with heavily armored Tower Guards, it has already been mentioned that melee Galadhrim with forged blades (who have massively increased damage against other infantry) and human Beornings (who ignore heavy armor) are your best choices. If these turn out to NOT be effective against Tower Guards, we will have to adjust that.


The Star of Hope is actually a very strong power in my opinion. It's just the the Army of the Dead is likely the single best spell in the game, most don't compare that well to it (which I'm aware is a problem, but the Army is difficult to nerf while still keeping their feeling from the movie - but note that they take a while to appear and don't stay for long, so you can reduce your losses by running away). The rain might need a buff (as might the arrow volley), I'll look into that.


The thing about mass killer heroes is that they're usually not meant to be good against upgraded Tower Guards, but rather hordes of weak units like Orcs. Here, Galadriel excels and Legolas does quite well too (note that while he doesn't appear to have any AoE powers until the arrow rain, he attacks extremely quickly and thus can kill many weak units in a short time). But I agree that Lorien could use a hero that is specifically oriented towards killing groups of units, and many of Legolas' powers don't help very much with that. Maybe we could increase the AoE of his knife attacks and replace the archer training ability with something that's better suited against enemy units?


The Caras Galadhon Guards could use some more special powers, I agree with that and I'm currently brainstorming a few, so hopefully they'll pack some more punch in the next version The idea is that they will be your go-to archers against less numerous, but heavily armored targets.

[CragLord]

Lots of good discussion here, so I'll just jump right in

The counter for siege units could either be your own archers with silverthorns and longbows (Lorien archers with longbows or Caras Galadhon guardians have range similiar to that of most siege units), or Beornings or Lorien swordsmen with their speed ability. I agree it is more difficult to counter them without straight-up cavalry, but I wouldn't say it's impossible. Some have already said that catapults in general have too much health at the moment, maybe we could lower it a bit?


Catapults are meant to be effective against armies that are clumped tightly together, but they shouldn't be "sniping" single units and heroes. That is something we will adjust. One thing I'm unsure about is how good catapults should be against monsters and other catapults. The thing is that catapults are the only way a fortress might be able to defend itself against other catapults (and thus force the attacker to bring more that one single catapult or Ent to bring down a fully upgraded fortress because you need superior firepower). On the other hand, one could argue that a fortress shouldn't in fact have defenses against siege weapons. What do you guys think?

Ents are actually way better than trolls in every way except speed (more health, more damage, can be used as a catapult), so they should cost more CP. However, we could increase the flame damage they need to take before they start burning.


The Palace Guards are not meant to work the same way the Tower Guard does. Tower Guards are very much a special case, they're the ultimate unit for holding a defensive line: Good against cavalry and thanks to their shield wall they can take a lot of damage from other unit types as well. They are designed this way because Gondor is supposed to be one of the best factions at holding heavily defended lines. Lorien by design is not supposed to be able to do that as well as Gondor. That is why the Palace Guard is more specialized against cavalry. Note that they are actually significantly better at stopping cavalry than the Tower Guard: Their porcupine stops cavalry short immediately and their forged blades grant them twice the damage of Gondor's.  As such an archer-focussed faction, I think Lorien is actually better served with a pike unit that is fully focussed on killing cavalry than an allrounder like the Tower Guard. And from what I've seen in that replay the Palace Guard did their job quite well: Whenever the Rohan player had his riders charge into your pikemen, they just got murdered.

So even if we replace the Porcupine formation, it would be with a specialized anti-cavalry ability, not a massive armor boost like the Tower Guard have. However, this would mean that Lorien would no longer have access to the Porcupine. The normal pikemen won't get it because we don't want to overload regular units with more than one active ability (their speed boost already requires more attention than many other abilities to be used well). I felt the Porcupine with its ability to stop even large groups of cavalry was something that Lorien really needed. If you think it could easily be removed from the faction, we could of course give the Palace Guard something else.

As for how Lorien should deal with heavily armored Tower Guards, it has already been mentioned that melee Galadhrim with forged blades (who have massively increased damage against other infantry) and human Beornings (who ignore heavy armor) are your best choices. If these turn out to NOT be effective against Tower Guards, we will have to adjust that.


The Star of Hope is actually a very strong power in my opinion. It's just the the Army of the Dead is likely the single best spell in the game, most don't compare that well to it (which I'm aware is a problem, but the Army is difficult to nerf while still keeping their feeling from the movie - but note that they take a while to appear and don't stay for long, so you can reduce your losses by running away). The rain might need a buff (as might the arrow volley), I'll look into that.


The thing about mass killer heroes is that they're usually not meant to be good against upgraded Tower Guards, but rather hordes of weak units like Orcs. Here, Galadriel excels and Legolas does quite well too (note that while he doesn't appear to have any AoE powers until the arrow rain, he attacks extremely quickly and thus can kill many weak units in a short time). But I agree that Lorien could use a hero that is specifically oriented towards killing groups of units, and many of Legolas' powers don't help very much with that. Maybe we could increase the AoE of his knife attacks and replace the archer training ability with something that's better suited against enemy units?


The Caras Galadhon Guards could use some more special powers, I agree with that and I'm currently brainstorming a few, so hopefully they'll pack some more punch in the next version The idea is that they will be your go-to archers against less numerous, but heavily armored targets.

It is nice to see that you have summed all of our efforts in one detailed answer.

Concerning catapult's hp, I personally don't have some complain to say, thing which irritates me is concerning flying units and catapult interaction. So in that term I am praying you will adjust damage from flying units on siege or low hp of catapult concerning that singular situation, but that is maybe not objective though in general case. Also I don't know what is situation with sniping, if any kind of heavy hero damage dealing by catapults exists, this should be changed as you have described. No "sniping", destroying of formations and units of clumped tightly army in first place.
Concerning siege vs siege, I have tested 2 Ent heroes and one standard ent on defensive stance destroyed Mordor catapult from one way of projectiles, that is basically 3 hits from ents on defensive stance. I am ok with that, probably 2 are needed on agressive stance. Concerning Citadel catapult vs ground catapult, I haven't so much exp to share some thought about that situation.

That is nice to hear about Ent flame damage, what will happened with regular arrows damage on them? Currently big "consistency" problem in game. What happens also about siege (flame) damage on ents? I haven't check current situation, but how many flaming bolders is needed to hit Ent before it start burning?

About Palace Guards their role, gameplay usage, formations I haven't any great experience to share or though, so I will skip that.

Star of Hope, nothing to add.
I am also for increase of damage of "Valar Tears", so I am really glad to hear that. I know that power's main usage is for mass slaying, but it damage on stronger units is very poor (trolls, drakes and stronger battalions).

Concerning mass slaying problem, maybe Grimbeorn can jump in beside that knife ability buff on Legolas. I know it is not unique anymore, but some stance for aoe similar to Tharnduil could do very good job. Agressive stance with his axe, so he gets some good aoe?

IF CG guardians get some special ability for dealing with those heavy armored units, that will be great. After all as mightiest range heroic unit, they simply deserve something like that from consistency terms, and earilier situation with Elite show us that this ability is really needed in game. Also current one (lesser damage and knock back) is pretty useless on more numerous battalions of enemies. Personally I think , if that knock back ability have effect on heroic units for example, that it could stay, but with adding of new one about dealing with heavy armored units etc. Otherwise, it should be removed, so basically to rebuild ability palantir for this unit.

I tried to give some feedback.

Best regards,
CragLord

[Hamanathnath]

 Great to see some feedback from the Lord of Gifts 

I'm glad that catapults will be looked at.  They are too powerful at singling out a hero.  But I don't want them to sometimes miss their targets as a fix to this problem.  What if they knocked the people hit farther back, so that other catapults will miss?  Just a suggestion.
As for their health, I don't know if it needs a change.  But I support making Eagle (and Fellbeasts to a lesser extent) stronger against siege weapons.  Maybe not to the point of 1 hit killing them, but right now eagles barely anything to these siege weapons.  Fellbeast can be slightly weaker then eagles at destroying siege weapons, because fell beasts don't have a timer on them.

Concerning Palace Guards, I can see why you want to make Palace Guards Specialized at taking down Cavalry, instead of the All Arounder like the Tower Guards.  But i think the problem is that, while Palace Guards are better at killing Cavalry then Tower Guards, it is still a very bad idea to charge into Tower Guards with Cavalry.  No matter which of the 2 units you are attacking with Cavalry, U most likely wont make it out without losing alot of units, which kinda makes Palace Guards being better at killing cavalry then Tower Guards not very useful.

Of course I would like to see your ideas on another Anti-Cavalry Formation, but I still think Palace Guards are missing something that other Elite Pike Units have.  The other elite pikes have something that makes them more then just Anti-Cavalry units.  I just think that Palace Guards, while better at killing cavalry then other pikes, that doesn't completely cover what they are missing.

I'm also glad that Rain of the Valar will be looked at.  I've already said what I think about it.

Concerning Legolas, maybe you don't need to remove his archer training ability, maybe make it so that it also makes the archers he used it on improved in some other way.  Maybe making their next volley of arrows have a small AoE effect that is slightly weaker then the arrows themselves?  Or maybe the Archers could fire their volleys faster for 30 seconds.

Grimbeorn could also be an option for mass-slayer, but I don't have much to say about that.

Also, I'm all for the CG-Guardians having new abilities.

[Adrigabbro]

Thanks for the answer!

Lots of good discussion here, so I'll just jump right in

The counter for siege units could either be your own archers with silverthorns and longbows (Lorien archers with longbows or Caras Galadhon guardians have range similiar to that of most siege units), or Beornings or Lorien swordsmen with their speed ability. I agree it is more difficult to counter them without straight-up cavalry, but I wouldn't say it's impossible. Some have already said that catapults in general have too much health at the moment, maybe we could lower it a bit?


Catapults are meant to be effective against armies that are clumped tightly together, but they shouldn't be "sniping" single units and heroes. That is something we will adjust. One thing I'm unsure about is how good catapults should be against monsters and other catapults. The thing is that catapults are the only way a fortress might be able to defend itself against other catapults (and thus force the attacker to bring more that one single catapult or Ent to bring down a fully upgraded fortress because you need superior firepower). On the other hand, one could argue that a fortress shouldn't in fact have defenses against siege weapons. What do you guys think?

Their health is fine but as CragLord rightly said, their resistance against flying units is a problem.
I'm glad you will take down a bit their damage against units. On the other hand, I think catapults should still be able to destroy other catapults in 3 hits or so.

Ents are actually way better than trolls in every way except speed (more health, more damage, can be used as a catapult), so they should cost more CP. However, we could increase the flame damage they need to take before they start burning.

I didn't know that was possible for you to do that but that's a great idea in my opinion.

The Palace Guards are not meant to work the same way the Tower Guard does. Tower Guards are very much a special case, they're the ultimate unit for holding a defensive line: Good against cavalry and thanks to their shield wall they can take a lot of damage from other unit types as well. They are designed this way because Gondor is supposed to be one of the best factions at holding heavily defended lines. Lorien by design is not supposed to be able to do that as well as Gondor. That is why the Palace Guard is more specialized against cavalry. Note that they are actually significantly better at stopping cavalry than the Tower Guard: Their porcupine stops cavalry short immediately and their forged blades grant them twice the damage of Gondor's.  As such an archer-focussed faction, I think Lorien is actually better served with a pike unit that is fully focussed on killing cavalry than an allrounder like the Tower Guard. And from what I've seen in that replay the Palace Guard did their job quite well: Whenever the Rohan player had his riders charge into your pikemen, they just got murdered.

So even if we replace the Porcupine formation, it would be with a specialized anti-cavalry ability, not a massive armor boost like the Tower Guard have. However, this would mean that Lorien would no longer have access to the Porcupine. The normal pikemen won't get it because we don't want to overload regular units with more than one active ability (their speed boost already requires more attention than many other abilities to be used well). I felt the Porcupine with its ability to stop even large groups of cavalry was something that Lorien really needed. If you think it could easily be removed from the faction, we could of course give the Palace Guard something else.

I gotta admit I always considered the porcupine formation as something left from the vanilla game just because it looked good but without any purpose. Then, I will try it in my next games before saying anything else on Palace Guards.
Still, I'd like to know how much additional armor Mirkwood units get compared to Lorien units (if you have an exact figure or anything)

The thing about mass killer heroes is that they're usually not meant to be good against upgraded Tower Guards, but rather hordes of weak units like Orcs. Here, Galadriel excels and Legolas does quite well too (note that while he doesn't appear to have any AoE powers until the arrow rain, he attacks extremely quickly and thus can kill many weak units in a short time). But I agree that Lorien could use a hero that is specifically oriented towards killing groups of units, and many of Legolas' powers don't help very much with that. Maybe we could increase the AoE of his knife attacks and replace the archer training ability with something that's better suited against enemy units?

Increasing the AoE of his knife will not help mass killing because this ability is actually used, rightfully, when Legolas is being attacked hand-to-hand ; if you want him to kill great amount of troops, you put him far behind and let him snipe. However I think it wouldn't be a bad thing at all to give him that buff because he has hard time defending himself right now.
Also, I personnally don't want his archer training ability to be removed. It is the only thing in his skillset that is sort of kingly and reminds us he is the Prince of Mirkwood. Plus this ability is very useful in game.
That leads us to the same conclusion: how about Grimbeorn?

The Caras Galadhon Guards could use some more special powers, I agree with that and I'm currently brainstorming a few, so hopefully they'll pack some more punch in the next version The idea is that they will be your go-to archers against less numerous, but heavily armored targets.

I like that! This way every archer has his own specific purpose:
Lorien archers ~> great range
Galadhrims ~> bow/sword switch
CG-Guardians ~> murdering elite units
Mirkwood archers ~> additional armor and mass killing (if they don't move)
Elkriders ~> ?????? Lol 
I think Elkriders are in bad spot right now but I guess that is another debate.

[Elite KryPtik]

Thanks for the response!

The counter for siege units could either be your own archers with silverthorns and longbows (Lorien archers with longbows or Caras Galadhon guardians have range similiar to that of most siege units), or Beornings or Lorien swordsmen with their speed ability. I agree it is more difficult to counter them without straight-up cavalry, but I wouldn't say it's impossible. Some have already said that catapults in general have too much health at the moment, maybe we could lower it a bit?

I don't think health is the problem, its armor against specific damage types. It takes unusually long for melee infantry and even heroes to kill a catapult if its running away, and as has already been mentioned, flying units are completely useless against them. I think that armor against all forms of melee attacks and flying units need to be decreased.

Catapults are meant to be effective against armies that are clumped tightly together, but they shouldn't be "sniping" single units and heroes. That is something we will adjust. One thing I'm unsure about is how good catapults should be against monsters and other catapults. The thing is that catapults are the only way a fortress might be able to defend itself against other catapults (and thus force the attacker to bring more that one single catapult or Ent to bring down a fully upgraded fortress because you need superior firepower). On the other hand, one could argue that a fortress shouldn't in fact have defenses against siege weapons. What do you guys think?

I agree that catapults are currently far too strong against heroes, especially dwarf catapults. They should receive a specific scalar to reduce their damage on heroes. I think they should remain strong against clumped units, monsters and other siege though.

Ents are actually way better than trolls in every way except speed (more health, more damage, can be used as a catapult), so they should cost more CP. However, we could increase the flame damage they need to take before they start burning.

I still think that 90 CP is just too much for a single ent, maybe 60 would be more suitable? It would be great if they were a bit more resistant to flame, and it would also be great if you didn't immediately lose control of them as soon as they are set on fire. I wish it was like in vanilla, where they look at themselves on fire for a second, then get enraged and can be controlled again. Having your ents run crazy from being set on fire is so freaking annoying and unfair.

The Palace Guards are not meant to work the same way the Tower Guard does. Tower Guards are very much a special case, they're the ultimate unit for holding a defensive line: Good against cavalry and thanks to their shield wall they can take a lot of damage from other unit types as well. They are designed this way because Gondor is supposed to be one of the best factions at holding heavily defended lines. Lorien by design is not supposed to be able to do that as well as Gondor. That is why the Palace Guard is more specialized against cavalry. Note that they are actually significantly better at stopping cavalry than the Tower Guard: Their porcupine stops cavalry short immediately and their forged blades grant them twice the damage of Gondor's.  As such an archer-focussed faction, I think Lorien is actually better served with a pike unit that is fully focussed on killing cavalry than an allrounder like the Tower Guard. And from what I've seen in that replay the Palace Guard did their job quite well: Whenever the Rohan player had his riders charge into your pikemen, they just got murdered.

So even if we replace the Porcupine formation, it would be with a specialized anti-cavalry ability, not a massive armor boost like the Tower Guard have. However, this would mean that Lorien would no longer have access to the Porcupine. The normal pikemen won't get it because we don't want to overload regular units with more than one active ability (their speed boost already requires more attention than many other abilities to be used well). I felt the Porcupine with its ability to stop even large groups of cavalry was something that Lorien really needed. If you think it could easily be removed from the faction, we could of course give the Palace Guard something else.

I would like to say for the record that I HATE the current effect of porcupine formation. Its completely unrealistic and clunky in my view. I think that instead of stopping cavalry dead in their tracks by barely touching the pikes, and basically paralyzing and immobilizing them as long as they remain in porcupine, that it should instead just deal extremely heavy trample revenge damage. That being said, I still think the palace guard are worthy of having a custom ability, they are after all elite pikes.

As for how Lorien should deal with heavily armored Tower Guards, it has already been mentioned that melee Galadhrim with forged blades (who have massively increased damage against other infantry) and human Beornings (who ignore heavy armor) are your best choices. If these turn out to NOT be effective against Tower Guards, we will have to adjust that.

Well, in my experience, melee Galadhrim are definitely not very effective against them. I can't speak so much for beornings, but I'm not sure that an army comprised mainly of tower guards could be stopped by a few beornings, there are just too many spears hitting the beornings at once for them to deal enough damage. I really dislike the current "light siege" role of beornings, I rather miss their crowd control role in the beta when they had aoe knockback, I think it filled the current missing role of mass slayer very well. Perhaps it could be weakened and reintroduced? Now that they can be knocked backed and trampled I think it would be much more fair.

The Star of Hope is actually a very strong power in my opinion. It's just the the Army of the Dead is likely the single best spell in the game, most don't compare that well to it (which I'm aware is a problem, but the Army is difficult to nerf while still keeping their feeling from the movie - but note that they take a while to appear and don't stay for long, so you can reduce your losses by running away). The rain might need a buff (as might the arrow volley), I'll look into that.

I wasn't trying so much to directly compare to AotD, its foolish to do so, nothing compares to it. The issue that I have with it is how slow the boat moves and how short the duration is, enemy armies can literally run 30 feet away and completely negate the effect of the spell. To counter this, either the effect should stay on units for a little while when they leave the radius of the boat or the boat should be made faster. The rain definitely needs a buff, it actually does not kill many units at all, just knocks them around a lot, and the arrow volley should be the strongest of the currently available volleys in the game, these are Elves we are talking about here.

The thing about mass killer heroes is that they're usually not meant to be good against upgraded Tower Guards, but rather hordes of weak units like Orcs. Here, Galadriel excels and Legolas does quite well too (note that while he doesn't appear to have any AoE powers until the arrow rain, he attacks extremely quickly and thus can kill many weak units in a short time). But I agree that Lorien could use a hero that is specifically oriented towards killing groups of units, and many of Legolas' powers don't help very much with that. Maybe we could increase the AoE of his knife attacks and replace the archer training ability with something that's better suited against enemy units?

I personally think that Grimbeorn fits rather well into the role of mass slayer, and his bee ability is currently basically useless. It could be replaced with something better. In addition, I think he should have a different level 10 ability for each of his forms. His human form seems to be more crowd control oriented, and his bear form better with single target damage, so maybe he could get a good mass slayer power at level 10 in human form? As for Legolas, I think that the knife fighter skill needs to give more armor, not more of a damage radius, Legolas is pathetically easy to kill. I really like the archer train, but its a bit useless later on, perhaps it could give a leadership for 1 minute as well? This would increase its usefulness significantly for units that are already high level.

The Caras Galadhon Guards could use some more special powers, I agree with that and I'm currently brainstorming a few, so hopefully they'll pack some more punch in the next version The idea is that they will be your go-to archers against less numerous, but heavily armored targets[./quote]

No response needed from me, can't wait to see what you come up with.

[Elite KryPtik]

Had a 1v1 with a friend, was teaching him how to play. He got the Ring and completely turned the match around, which is fine. However, 1 of Blessed Galadriels powers is absolutely OP. Memory of The Trees(or whatever its real name is) does absurd amounts of damage to heroes. It will bring any hero from full health to like 20%. I'm attaching the replay so people can see this in action. Combined with the incredibly long stun duration of the ability, its basically instant death for all enemy heroes in a medium radius. Additionally, I don't have a problem with how long the invulnerability lasts, but I think the radius is too wide, it shouldn't be much more than Galadriel without the Ring.

[IronSkye]

Had a 1v1 with a friend, was teaching him how to play. He got the Ring and completely turned the match around, which is fine. However, 1 of Blessed Galadriels powers is absolutely OP. Memory of The Trees(or whatever its real name is) does absurd amounts of damage to heroes. It will bring any hero from full health to like 20%. I'm attaching the replay so people can see this in action. Combined with the incredibly long stun duration of the ability, its basically instant death for all enemy heroes in a medium radius. Additionally, I don't have a problem with how long the invulnerability lasts, but I think the radius is too wide, it shouldn't be much more than Galadriel without the Ring.

Sorry, I am against your suggestion.
The stun isn't too long and the damage is only in a small area around her.
When I played last time I haven't noticed that the damage was really high (at least it doesn't deal 80%  of heroes life as damage, have you used only early heroes?).

The invulnerability power should be strong, because she really needs it.
And the long CD works perfectly for balance, there is no need to change something.

Please test her in further games.
br Sky

 

[Elite KryPtik]

Did you actually watch the replay? I have proof sitting in that replay of how strong the damage is. As I said, I have no problem with the length of the invincibility, just the ridiculous radius it works at. I'm talking about Blessed Galadriel, who rejected the Ring, not her basic invulnerability.

[Odysseus]

I don't think Ring Heroes were ever designed or ever truly will be balanced. I think they are meant to secure you the victory, with bizarrely OP powers. I'll watch the replay, but with this in mind. I generally don't like abilities that kill a hero instantly. Point and kill abilities are generally pretty unfair. I remember suggesting that nerf to Hawk Strike and eventually it did happen, so let's see if that power might need it too

[Elite KryPtik]

Well it wouldn't even be so bad if it was just a single hero, but this can literally wipe out all your heroes. I crippled her with lurtz, rushed my heroes in to kill her asap, and suddenly they all just die. Also, I'm aware that Ring Heroes aren't meant to be balanced, but it seems to me unfair that some factions like Isengard, Mordor and Lorien have such crazy OP Ring Heroes compared to other factions. At least they should all be equally OP.

[CragLord]

Well it wouldn't even be so bad if it was just a single hero, but this can literally wipe out all your heroes. I crippled her with lurtz, rushed my heroes in to kill her asap, and suddenly they all just die. Also, I'm aware that Ring Heroes aren't meant to be balanced, but it seems to me unfair that some factions like Isengard, Mordor and Lorien have such crazy OP Ring Heroes compared to other factions. At least they should all be equally OP.

Yes Elite, but you should understand this ability in usage terms in current shape.
You can say it is OP in your opinion, but also you shouldn't do that hero rush on her. I meant, it is powerful ability, sincerely I don't know about radius of it, but damage is ok in my opinion. Also, she is really weak after she used that spell in offensive way.
So in one hand this is protection mechanism on Blessed form so you can't do what you tried, to instantly destroy her. I know it is also powerful offensive stuff, but simply I like ability, and I think it is on its place from view that she has protection mechanism against that hero rush on her. Beside this, Blessed form is completely supportive and her regular attack damage on heroes is very low, I would say it is joke.
So next time don't try that instant hero rush on her, don't concentrate all heroes around her.
Some other way is needed for killing her, and I really agree about that, maybe not so much in balance terms, but from lore and lore's consistency facts, she as holy being probably had power to do that.