The Dreaded Khazad-Dûm Veterans

[Odysseus]

Good day gents,

It's me again. I've got a couple of suggestions I would like to make about the veterans of Khazad-Dûm to accompany my post in the Dwarven Balance Discussion section.

I had intended to make this a long one, but I believe I said the most important things there. As such, I'll simply give some of my ideas to make facing those veterans less frustrating and more controllable for other factions.

However, first I will present some arguments:

1. Lord of Mordor said that the biggest disadvantage with the veterans, unlike with the others, is the time spent to field them. It takes 9 minutes to field 3 battalions and thus 3 minutes per battalion.
 
2. Gnomi argued that not every mechanic a faction possesses can be balanced on all maps, and that some maps favour specific factions more than the others.

3. Draco1000 mentioned that the major problem with them is the fact that there is no limit on them and that those 3 minutes are less compared to all the time you have to spent to research the upgrades for the other factions to unlock their heroic unit.

My thoughts:

1. While this sounds good on paper, it is very map-dependant, too map dependant even, in my opinion, but I'll say some more of that in thought #2.
Furthermore, following the logic presented by Lord of Mordor (Which is sound, don't worry), time being perhaps the most crucial resource of all, it means that, to make them worth the wait, they have to be extremely potent, otherwise you waste time. This can quite easily be observed: They are the tankiest of the heroic units so far, and their damage is on par with the other heroic units, if only slightly inferior to some. They have fantastic abilities to accompany their natural tankiness, with knockback and trample immunity at level 2.

2. As I have said in the first point and on Moddb, every strategy employed in the mod is map dependant, however this is not completely the case here. See, the majority of the maps in ET, even most of the competitive maps, possess at least 2 or 3 points very close to your base (which are called naturals), and these are much, much easier to defend than points far away from your base. If you build the Travel Camp on such a point, it will make it very hard for your opponent to harass that point since you can reinforce and defend the point much faster due to being so close to your own base. On some maps, they are even in range of base towers/turrets. And if he were to destroy it, it can be rebuild much quicker too.

3. I agree with this. Dwarves have the strongest late-game army among the Free Peoples and they can actually take all factions head on in medium to late game. This can actually be done without veterans. Their default 500 unit is already quite strong and can tango with other factions troops without too much hassle and the Dwarves actually have base units that can still perform quite well in the latest stage of game, compared to for instance Peasants or default orcs. Their leaders are pretty fantastic too, and can buff most of them to crazy proportions, especially Dain Ironfoot with his warcries. Currently however, it is very plausible and near impossible to defeat late game, when your opponent's entire army consists only of Khazad-Dûm veterans. It's not uncommon to see multiple Dwarves swarming around with at least 6 or 7 sometimes even 10 or 12 battalions, all with high levels, because they can take and deal so much damage.

My suggestions to the problem at hand:

Note: As I have stated in the balance discussion, I am not sure if ET already has tweaks planned to accompany the new design they will receive for 4.3, so I will make these suggestions without that in mind.

1. The easiest and most obvious proposition would be to limit them like the other heroic units. I believe this should be a standard rule amongst all factions. No faction should be able to to have their heroic unit exceed 3 battalions, in my humble opinion. If needed, it could be made 4 for the sake of a compromise, but I would prefer not too.

2. I am assuming that with their new design in 4.3, they will now, by default, arrive with a specific weapon. If so, I would suggest tieing the other weapon unlocks to a price and the upgrade in the Dwarven Forge to create more time between them and the arrival of heroic units from other factions. Dwarves can have the strongest heroic unit in the game, out before any other faction, by quite some time, if rushed.

3. Finally, there could be some other options. Logically speaking, I have some hypotheses, but I'll only present one, because they seem less interesting to me. Anyway, what if the veterans can no longer reinforce models in the open, but instead have to go to the travel camp and in small radius around it, they can reinforce fallen models?

These are some arguments and suggestions I have presented. I look forward to your suggestions and thoughts as always!

Kind regards.

[Elite KryPtik]

In regards to your arguments, the strongest army of the free peoples late game is undoubtedly Gondor, its not even close.
Tower Guard spam is extremely effective against melee infantry and makes you immune to cavalry, rangers are the 2nd best archers in the game, Aragorn is the 2nd best hero killer in the game, Gandalf is the best mass slayer in the game(not counting any of the ring heroes), Word of Power and Army of the Dead can instakill most enemy armies. Need I say more?

That being said, Dwarven Veterans are indeed very strong. I don't agree with limiting them, but I have been saying my solution since the beta. Make ponies require money to buy, something like 800, and then when you add the prices together, 800 for ponies and 500 for the infantry = 1300, the same as other heroic battalions. Boom, problem solved. If the team wanted to add a 3 minute cooldown on buying the ponies as well because the veterans are infinite that would be fine.

In regards to their new design, (I hope I'm allowed to say this) their weapon purchase system as of right now is the same as the old one, so your 2nd idea wouldn't work. Finally, I don't understand your third idea at all, are you suggesting to make Veterans slaves to the pony camp?

[Adrigabbro]

I guess you mean that Celeborn is the best hero killer in the game, right?
Well I disagree. Aragorn's first ability is better than Celeborn's and I think that's the main reason why Aragorn is the best hero killer in the game. Of course Celeborn has some cool abilities too, especially when he hits level 10, but so does Aragorn (Athelas, Elendil, knife throw) plus it takes quite a while to level him up.

[Elite KryPtik]

I meant that Eowyn is the best hero killer in the game, I thought everybody knew that. 1v1 she can beat pretty much any other hero in the game, including celeborn, except for GTW and I think Sauron with ring, although she beats him without ring.

[Adrigabbro]

Level 10 perhaps. Otherwise, not a chance she defeats Aragorn or Celeborn. ^^

[Odysseus]

Hmm, she is the most cost-effective hero killer though, in my opinion. Nonetheless, I still think that Aragorn provides more for your overall composition, for he also provides additional support elements.

However, can we get back to topic?

@Elite
Would you please make up your mind? In Game Ranger, you told me that Dwarven veterans needed to be limited. Also, one point you say Dwarves have the best free people army late game, but now it's Gondor all of a sudden? It's confusing me, stop it .

I still believe they need something. The bug fixes will be a good thing to do first.

[Elite KryPtik]

Opinions change over time as you gain experience with the different factions. I told you that about the dwarves at least several months ago, and have had plenty of time to refine my opinions since then.

[Sawman]

You realize that if you limit veterans to 3 all your hero's cannot get mithril and that would honestly ruin dwarves for me and about that every other faction has a limit of 3 heroic units have you played Gondor lol? Bergrond can summon unlimited white company and not to mention borimir with ring can summon 6 or 7 guardians of the city so I agree with kry about buying the ponies and putting a set time for which you can buy them again and I would suggest to add a new outpost of some kind if people don't like how easy it is to defend the travel camp on some maps but let's not go there

thanks

[Odysseus]

While I agree with you, it would also imply that one would have to be more strategical with the usage of mythril mails. All I am saying is that Dwarven Veterans can be spammed into oblivion if properly placed and defended. When that happens, and they begin to level, there is very little any faction can do.

If changing the veterans is out of the question, looking at the travel camp would be the next thing. If that is out of the question too, to make veterans harder to spam, I will rest my case, and ask for this topic to be locked.

If there is anything yet to be discussed, please do so.