Lets talk combat edition, spells a and balance!

[Cel]

Yes we could change invisibility cost/effectiveness though even if invisibility is strong I think most of the other spells are in favor of dks.
Haste > Slow (buffing is easier than de-buffing)
Coil > Fireball
Unholy armor > FlameShield (Dk bombs are pretty devastating)
The only spell that dk have that sucks is Skeletons and yeah it could use a slight buff and I mentioned but I wouldn't want to change any of these first
Invis is strong and can change the outcome of a game it is true, but it is not like we never see hasted dks able to do a similar job or even better in some occasions.

I am not saying nerfing haste or  invisibility is out of the question though, the way I see it, it is a minor balance issue compared to lust / heal.

I think even with a double mana cost increase on lust, ogre mages will still be way better than paladins lust still will be > to heal because of the ease of use, runes also will be > to exorcism which is fine I think because it wont be that much better, humans do not have to play exactly the same and have the same strength/weaknesses than orc for the game to be balanced.

I would advocate we just try lust / heal changes and see where we have to go from there as I said the more subtle the changes the better we are off when is comes to these things really.
Small steps to make the game even closer to perfection than it is without denaturing it.

Right now as it is we barely ever see a church built for humans if you remove the altar of storm and the church from the available buildings which is very much doable in a custom map it is not like the unbalances are crazy between the two races it is in fact very minimal and I would even argue some player will still prefer running the orcs in that situation.

All the other changes I suggested that are not heal/lust are examples of things we could do from there in the future, but if we are to balance things one day I would advocate doing that using very small steps to  try and change the minimum we can at every step of the way  .

 

[Lambchops]

Fireball is effectively an AOE spell if microed correctly and has the biggest range of any attack in the game.

The only reason Fireball is not used a lot more and a game-changer is because blizzard is so massively OP so why would you use your mp on fireball?

The only thing coil is better for is attacking fliers above you gold without hitting your peons.
This is usefull, but not > fireball, no way.

blizz >>>>> d&d

Unholy armor is a good buff but in reality hardly ever used.

Runes can be effective but is very costly.

Haste is a strong spell ... would be very interesting to give it to paladins.

[Winchester]

Runes can be effective but is very costly.

Its only 1000 gold and you get the money back from it essentially within the first cast if you use it on the enemys gold line at a walled in base as a mini death and decay,  . And it can even be used to damage ships on watermaps, juggernauts/battleships are real easy to hit with runes due to how slow they are (not that sending a dragon or dnd/bllizzard isnt better, but its handy to know you can sink ships with ogres if the need arises)  Exorcism is way more costly @ 2000 gold and has less potential use. I use it to snipe incoming dks i can't kill in time with basic attacks only before it launches death and decay, or to kill walled in death knights that I spot using holy vision on the paladins that don't have full mana for the 1shot kill.

Runes is also one of the ways to counter invisibility if played correctly.

and while i love blizzard against a group of ogres, dnd does have its spots where its more better.  It is stronger against 2x2 and 4x4 buildings. So it's greater at blowing up towers then blizzard is with less mana required. 

That said, it feels great blowing up an orcs altar of storms with blizzard when ogre mage upgrade is 90% done and they used 6 peons to repair the altar. 

[Cel]

Yup as I said the mage spells superiority to dks are very debatable, you forgot to mention the most essential advantage of coil it gives your dk a whole bunch of life back you can effectively one or two shot enemy mages / ogres with it while healing yourself that is why it is used so often in desperate situations.
Just like you said fireball is not cost effective coil is very much cost effective and useful also it cant be dodged.
Blizzard is better against odd number of tiles enemies 1x1 3x3 and d&d better against even 2x2 4x4 you can rip apart a hall or a bunch of farms/towers with d&d and it still is better than blizzard because of haste even against units really.

Haste on paladins would maybe work yes but that is not the point giving them lust and runes also would work if we are going that road but then if we want to make it all even we would have to copy all spells over from orcs to humans, it would dramatically change the way humans play and the game logic too I think we can achieve balance without denaturing the game or changing its original design. We are talking small tweaks in numbers not complete redesign/rework of the races/tree.

That is why I made this thread because I saw some discussions about this, if we are to try and help the balance of the game it has to be through baby steps, and a majority of our players have to agree that it is the way to go.
A big part of our player base are here for the nostalgia, heal is a very human iconic spell and so is lust we don't want to replace them rather slightly improve the balance around them in a way that is acceptable by all.

 

[Lambchops]

Runes can be effective but is very costly.

Its only 1000 gold and you get the money back from it essentially ...

If that isn't a troll you're mentally deficiant

advantage of coil it gives your dk a whole bunch of life back

dks have 60 hp and 0 armor.

The difference between fully healed dk and a 1hp dk is very little. If an ogre catches it, it's still dead. I seriously doubt that the healing effect of coil has changed the outcome of very many games ever. That would be very unusual.

Blizzard is better against odd number of tiles enemies 1x1 3x3 and d&d better against even 2x2 4x4

I'm a bit sceptical about that. Multicast blizz owns d&d in my experience, although I have never done a test against farms. I've certainly never had any trouble smashing forts with it ...

-- edit --

its handy to know you can sink ships with ogres if the need arises

Good point never actually done that, but I dont play much water.

[shesycompany]

i  think** winchester was thinking about rune cost not mana cost ...im glad its 200 be a spam fest if it was lower..

[Cel]

About blizzard and d&d :

Knowing that difference will matter if you are playing humans a lot. If you are going to use your blizzard against farms you will need multiple mages because otherwise farms wont die it is very ineffective to use blizzard against farms as a human this is just not a viable strategy really.

One blizzard will leave farms alive where one d&d will kill them all that is the thing, often late game you will see dks come and rip apart patches of farms, this can completely cripple a late game economy 1 mage can simply not do that it is not an option.
If there is a difference to be seen between the two spells it is on farms that you will see it the most. Units will die fairly quickly to both d&d and blizzard but farms will not die under 1 blizzard.

Multicast blizzard does not own multicast d&d in my experience they both annihilate pretty much anything, but arguably hasted d&d owns both because you have close to the same effect and it is much cheaper to achieve.
Blizzard will be able to kill ogres a little faster yes but both spells will kill an ogre when multicast comes into play, both races can multicast it is not just a human thing.

Again not saying blizzard is < to d&d more that these two spells are pretty balanced as it is things do not have to be exactly equal to be balanced.

About Coil :

Saying a full life dk is the same as a 1hp dk is just not true, not every unit in the game will one shot a full life dk as a matter of fact dks can even take several hits from non lusted ogres before they die coil just allow you kill and sometime even survive a situation that d&d wouldn't. On a water map this is the difference between loosing your one dk defending a spot and keeping it fresh for the next attack that will happen maybe long after when the dk will have recovered all its mana back.
When facing another dk if one casts d&d and the other coil the coil guy will survive d&d and kill the enemy dk because of that life back otherwise it would be a draw.

All the tier one players know how to use and abuse it, coil is a very effective and useful spell and it is used a lot before and after d&d is researched, and it not as unusual as you would think that coil changes the day, especially if you look at water maps where the late game really involves casters more.

Now if you look at fireball as a comparison it is barely ever used before blizzard is researched unless its a life or death situation and certainly not after unless it is a troll the spell is barely ever used at all it is just a bad spell.
As a matter of fact it would be like if dks had Skeletons as their first spell instead of coil and had to pay/research coil in place of skeletons except even skeletons would be arguably better and more used than fireball is  .

[shesycompany]

i dont think lust matters alot on sea. which yall all forgetting of invis another op spell.

[Winchester]

If that isn't a troll you're mentally deficiant

I understand a noob like you takes forever to get 1000 gold. It's ok. people like you tend to be Deficient with your peon count by the time you actually survive to fortress and build an altar of storms. I'm sure any half decent player on this server could beat you with Runes or flame shield only. But don't worry, keep trying. You'll get there soon mr sensationalized meme.

deficient
/dɪˈfɪʃ(ə)nt/
adjective
1.
not having enough of a specified quality or ingredient.

[Szwagier]

Invis is only op in sea maps, haste>invis cause dk with haste can easly kill 9 ogres while if  mage will die insta after using 50-100 mana(depend how near he is to ogres)

human got sea
orc got land
game is balanced
EOT

[Cel]

Yes if not for lust and heal the game is pretty balanced as it is.
As u8 says in water maps where you cant rely only on big patches of lusted ogres humans tend to survive a bit better/longer but as the game is right now I would still give the advantage to the orcs to be honest.
From what I see when I watch T1 players playing HSC:
Lust + haste on dragons will 99% of the time give water control to the orc player especially if there is water not reachable by mages.
D&d being better for destroying farms / oil platforms it gives good opportunities to cripple the enemy player.
If we look at good players playing HSC the resources they lack the most is often not gold or lumber it is oil and food space when the game goes late, so having d&d and haste here is a big bonus.
It is true there is no stopping an invisible transport but you cant really stop a hasted transport either yes you can see it coming and prepare for it but if there is a hasted dk in it the potential damages are much higher.
So yeah overall the only changes I would really go for at first would be lust/heal mana cost changes and see from there (also making heal cast like exo).
 

[shesycompany]

exo heal will be badass!! but really has anyone really tried the other spells to make a strat with them...mainly slow/flameshield

[Lambchops]

If that isn't a troll you're mentally deficiant

I understand a noob like you takes forever to get 1000 gold. It's ok. people like you tend to be Deficient with your peon count by the time you actually survive to fortress and build an altar of storms. I'm sure any half decent player on this server could beat you with Runes or flame shield only. But don't worry, keep trying. You'll get there soon mr sensationalized meme.

deficient
/dɪˈfɪʃ(ə)nt/
adjective
1.
not having enough of a specified quality or ingredient.

@Winchester
Costly in MP not gold, as is the context of this entire thread DUH

[  ] Yes to Lust mana cost increase
[  ] Yes to Heal mana cost decrease 
[  ] Yes to Troll regen increase
[  ] Yes to Skeletons cost decrease
[  ] Yes to Unholy armor cost decrease
[  ] Yes to Firebolt cost decrease
[  ] Yes to Flameshield cost decrease

 .... / ....

Unholy armor:
A very powerfull spell to make dk bombs and other fancy moves but it is very expensive overall still and could be a bit cheaper from 200 to something around 150 100.

Flames shield:
A fun spell when used wisely I would however lower the cost of flames shield from 80 to something around 50 to make it more possible/worth doing invisibility/flameshield combos

I was giving you the benefit of the doubt by suggesting you were trolling, but instead you doubled down .... lol you mental midget


Just guessing, but are you perhaps one of those people that spends more time talking than listening?

[Winchester]

Costly in MP not gold, as is the context of this entire thread DUH

Still don't see how runes is costly to a guy who never never lusts his ogres and has full mana on most of his ogres? As I said, you're easily flame shield only levels of bad

[Cel]

For blizzard a d&d it just seems that when farms are isolated d&d does seem to get them more accurately empirically the difference is super small so it is for units that is what I mean by there is no need to balance blizzard and d&d they are fine.
Now it could be completely wrong and it does not really matter as my point is we don't need to balance what already is fairly balanced.

Transports are max speed there is no stopping them anyways point being you can load a hasted dk in a transport move it to the enemy island and cast d&d as soon as it goes out it cant be stopped. Haste > slow because buffing a unit before a fight is just easier than when its an enemy moving or running at your face. Also haste can be used in multiple ways for speeding up economy (on peons/oil tankers) or allow sappers to run into towers while not getting shot twice etc...

Coil may one shot a mage and most of the time it will leave him very very low life while healing your dk, you need 3 to 4 direct hits with fireballs to kill an enemy mage or dk not even talking about the fact that they are pretty easy to dodge running sideways and it does not heal your mage a bit, there is a reason one spell is used and the other is not. Players are not stupid if fireball was any good it would be used just like skeletons if they did do damage they would be used.

Ideally balance changes would make every units and spell of the tech trees interesting to get and use depending on the situation it is not just about balancing humans vs orcs.

Lust is too strong because it makes trying to do anything else than getting it not worth.
It becomes a no-brainer to get it where it could be a strategical choice to get it over say dks or getting sappers or else earlier in the game. Altar of storm is the number 1 building people go for after reaching fort now if you look at heal/exorcism it is so bad that Chuch is barely ever even built it is not worth spending money on we are talking a building that is even less worth to get than the refinery here.

Lust gives such a power spike that often people will repair the altar with 3 4 peons just to get it like 1 min before the opponent because if you get it that little bit sooner you may win it is such a game changer / breaker.

Plus you don't have to plan when to use it you just re-lust all the time because it is that cheap, this is where balance could really help having more options, allowing counter plays and more of the tech tree to be explored and used effectively in games.

It is not like the game is poor and lacks options or depth when lust is disabled, the game is pretty amazing and balanced otherwise lust just overshadows a lot of its potential.

I have seen games were Braviet played with runes and zeppelins against lust. Man did he won the fights but it is so expensive to keep up in terms of micro management that he got out macro easily. Because the enemy would just mass produce lust and send without looking while Braviet had to always pay attention and plan where and when to put runes out on the map to cripple the lusted enemy army before it arrives if lust was that tiny little more expensive Braviet would have won this game. And I feel he would have deserved it because that strategy could be very worth. It requires far more thinking/planning and execution skills than just rushing lust and sending ogies accross the map.

It if fun to watch and commentate different strategies I would love for these kind of things to happen more often.
Again not saying lust needs to be removed just saying I love lust but I would also love it to be a strategical choice more than a no-brainer.