Just some more Warcraft 3 ramblings

Paladin stuff

Something I quite like about the Orcs, and to an extent the Night Elves and Undead, is that some of their hero units are strictly speaking a more powerful practitioner of what is also a regular unit.

The Far Seer, Tauren Chieftain, Shadow Hunter, Priestess of Elune, Keeper of the Grove,  Lich and Crypt Lord are “powered up” versions of the Shaman, [regular] Tauren, Witch Doctor, Archer, Dryad, Necromancer and Nerubian.

Given the extent, say, a group like the Knights of the Silver Hand is spread in the Alliance at this time in Warcraft history, I find it quite odd that you only see the Paladins as a hero unit. It would have made sense to me to have a “regular” Paladin unit as the tier 3 human melee fighter, a mana based warrior akin to the Druids of the Claw.

I get that some classes, like the Death Knight, wouldn’t make sense to have so common, but Paladins weren’t really uncommon, were they? Even after Arthas destroyed much of the Knights of the Silver Hand there were enough Paladins to have the Scarlet Crusade, the Argent Dawn and the Blood Knights (taking basis in the ones with ties to the Alliance specifically), in addition to the Knights of the Silver Hand living on, albeit diminished.

It would also make sense that more than 2 Paladins (Uther and Arthas) are involved in fighting the undead after the effects of the plague are shown. You first get access to Knights in the Scourge of Lordaron campaign in the Culling mission, when Arthas purges Strathholm. The same mission when he relieves Uther of command and tells the ones with the will to save the land to follow him. Given that Uther is the leader of the Knights of the Silver Hand and he brings forces assigned to him, I would have expected at least some Paladins to stay behind and follow Arthas. Alas, you only see more Paladins when Arthas has already become a Death Knight.

And, like I said, it is not like you couldn’t have “proper” Paladin heroes even with regular Paladin units.

Don’t get me wrong, I really like the Knight unit in W3. I think that having units(Footman and Knight) with high armor and fast attack speed to compensate for lower per-hit damage and hit points is a good way to bring across the different physique of the humans compared to Orcs, Tauren and powerful undead fighters, like the Abomination, in gameplay alone. This way you show that humans have less raw strength to being to the table and has compensated for it by crafting better armor and being faster. I just wish there was a Paladin regular unit for the human armies.

Rebalancing the Paladin and Death Knight heroes

In my previous take on these two, I argued that it would fit thematically to have them be agility heroes because of how human melee units in W3 works and I stand by that. But I do see a problem that could emerge.

The Paladin’s Divine Shield when coupled with a higher attack speed would make it really fucking dangerous. So I’d favor reducing the duration a bit. Or a lot.

The other problem is that I think the way the game restricts Holy Light and Death Coil very unfairly benefits the Death Knight. On most maps, when fighting most of the other factions, the Death Knight will have a very flexible Death Coil option, as it will be able to damage most foes. This is not the case for the Paladin, since most maps and most enemies do not allow for Holy Light to be used offensively. My thinking would be to make both heal allies and hurt enemies, irrespective of whether or not they qualify as undead, demons or living. Basically different animations and names for the same ability. Which is not all that out of place with the Paladin and Death Knight to begin with.

I think this would help the Paladin see more competitive play. The Death Knight already sees a fair bit of competitive play, as far as I could tell (actually quite fun watching 1v1 matches by professionals, it turned out), and I think this is largely because Death Coil is simply more versatile against most enemies.

Also, Agility based Paladin hero with a Holy Light able to damage things strikes me a bit like a Retribution style Paladin, which is my favorite style of Paladin. In principle anyway. Never actually played World of Warcraft myself, though I’ve had friends who did during the Burning Crusade and the Wrath of the Lich King. I dunno. I just like the “being the damage dealer” side of it better.

Samurai Orcs

The Blademaster is one of my favorite heroes in W3, especially Grommash with his unique model. However, I do have to say I dislike the way the Blademaster speaks. I don’t mind their weapon or even the flag-thing their have on their back, but the comically bad stereotypical accent is quite annoying.

Founding of Durotar

Quite a fun campaign, which nicely shows the W3 gameplay at work in a more RPGy setting. Too bad there isn’t more stuff like that. One where you could choose your own hero would’ve been nice.

Horribly bad models

Talking about horrible models might be a lost cause with this game, as it’s graphics are not that great. Things are meant to be viewed at a fair distance. So, when a model in this game makes you go “what the fuck happened!?”, you know something is seriously wrong. The generic Far Seer hero appearance is, in my opinion, completely mystifying. How could they have decided that that was the model they wanted to go with?

Eh, whatever. Going to give my opinion on the Thalmor next time. Probably. Should be fun, if brief.

Mumbling incoherently about some stuff about Warcraft 3

Yet another review of a game that can soon buy its own liquor? Nope, just what the title says. Including the redundant, clunky phrasing it contains.

Humans

Why isn’t this faction in the game called “Alliance”? It is not just humans making up the ranks, but Dwarves and High/Blood Elves too. It is one of the earlier incarnations of the Alliance. Same goes for “Orc” fitting more with the name “Horde”, as Tauren, Orcs and Trolls all have their representation.

What I like about the Alliance in this game is its synergy. No one unit dominates (maybe except the Muradin-styled Mountain King that kicks a metric shit-ton of ass), but they work very well together. Between the buffs, debuffs, utility and general flexibility, they are a lot of fun to use. For me anyway. No clue, or care, for competitive play. If that even goes on anymore with this game.

Something else I like about the Alliance is that the melee soldiers have lower health, but more armor. And they have a generous attack speed. Made sense to me that the humans would compensate for their lower stature and physical strength when opposing the Orcs this way. So why on earth does the melee heroes of the Alliance focus on strength over agility?

I should probably quickly summarize these attributes and the heroes in general. Each hero has three attributes: Strength, agility and intelligence. Each attribute has specific effects on the hero. Strength increases health and health regen. Agility increases attack speed and armor. Intelligence increases mana and mana regeneration. In addition to this, each hero will have one of these three as a primary attribute, which means it will determine the damage the hero does. Strength heroes are usually called “Warrior Hero”, agility heroes are called “Cunning Hero” and intelligence heroes are usually called “Mystical Hero”.

Warrior Heroes typically have a high strength, moderate intelligence and low agility. Cunning Heroes typically have a value between moderate and high in all three. Mystical heroes typically have high intelligence and moderate to low strength and agility, but with a slight increase in movement speed and ranged attacks to compensate for their lack of survivability.

So, looking at the common Alliance units, which are focused on armor and speed over health, why are the Paladin and Mountain King heroes made to be Warrior Heroes?

Now, I will acknowledge that the Mountain King would probably be even more powerful as a Cunning Hero. It’s 20/30/40% (!!!) chance of doing a critical strike that stuns would benefit immensely from increased attack speed. So, from a gameplay perspective, I can see that getting out of hand on a hero that is already a “hero killer”. Though I would prefer to reduce the proc chance a bit instead and make it an agility based hero. But I see the point.

The hero I don’t see why they made a Warrior Hero is the Paladin and, by extension, the Death Knight who is the undead mirror of the Paladin. Sure, they run around with big weapons and look imposing and strong, but so does the Blademaster, which is a Cunning Hero. The Blademaster is easily more muscular than the Paladin and Death Knight, and way more dangerous in melee range because of its Critical Strike ability (15% chance of doing x2/3/4 damage).

The Paladin and Death Knights are melee support heroes and are not going to ever be considered a real threat directly, beyond what any hero is. They simply do not have the abilities the Mountain King has that would give their increased attack speed much more to present in a melee fight. Their increase in armor would also be compensated for through their decrease in health. The only direct benefit would be a slight increase in intelligence, but even that won’t be more than 3/4 points at level 10. However, it would fit thematically on how the human units (the Death Knights are humans in this game. Non-human Death Knights are not seen in W3) work as opposed to Orcs.

Of course, yes, the increase in attack speed and mana would make them a bit better. And I would have liked that, because I really enjoy playing with that sort of melee unit, but I don’t think those improvements (which does come at the cost of quite a bit of health which isn’t fully accounted for by the armor increase) would upset the hero balance. Just fit the themes better.

Blademaster

What I said about could be taken as me thinking the Orcish Blademaster should be a Warrior Hero, which would be half-true. Yes, it would fit thematically with the general Orcish melee units, but, at the same time, it wouldn’t fit that well with Grommash Hellscream.

For those who never played W3, Grommash Hellscream is a Blademaster with a unique model. And, on the topic of that model, I really like how they carried over him being an empowered Grunt unit in Warcraft 2 visually in Warcraft 3. He uses an axe and has shoulder armor, just like the Grunt model used in Warcraft 3, basically making him a stronger and unique Grunt. That can turn invisible. And create Mirror Images. Grommash’s magical aptitude seems to have gone missing in later representations.

While Grommash is portrayed as a hulking mount of muscle in most representations, the lore behind him at the time of W3 says that he used speed and agility a lot more than most Orcish warriors. And therefor it makes sense that the class Grommash has is a Cunning Hero. And since the generic heroes kinda just work off their story-mode counterparts, this needed no change.