Mid-Season 10 balance patch prep thread

Games Halo Wars Series
1

Hello Friends,

Nothing like waking up at 2 in the morning feeling sick am I right? Well I can’t sleep and have gone through the majority of discord’s and various channels and I see a couple major themes about the balance update so far.

I know some are thinking, “The patch has t even been out for a week?” Well, it’s best to get ahead of the curve and force the conversations early so we can target adjustment as effectively as possible.

  • Cleansing Beam is too strong vs buildings. - Air is no longer OP but in a solid spot vs AA. - Jackrabbits still are not strong enough vs all forms of infantry besides core. - Marines are a bit too strong early game. - Anti-Vehicle isn’t anti vehicle enough in some engagements. - Wathogs still need some love. - Tanks and T3 Air need more building damage. - Rangers are still too weak. - Grunt mines and Countermeasure Brute Mines investigation to reduce damage vs vehicles including scouts.If there are additional items or sentiment you would like to discuss regarding the current balance of the game, please respond here. Also, if there is anything we can learn from The Yappening, it is when sending direct messages, the most positively received valediction to use following claims of being destroyed is “warmest regards”. Just ask the UNSC’s very own Anti-Yap movement Sgt. Palooggooggooggooggoolloo. He knows what I’m talking about!

<mark>Please make feedback in a form as close to what follows as possible.</mark>

<mark>I feel this way (opinion)</mark>
<mark>This is why (proof)</mark>
<mark>This is also why and a Reasonable conclusion (additional proof)</mark>

Cheers,
Postums

2

In addition to what’s above, imo

  1. Cleansing beam is also too strong vs units
  2. Hunter Captain should have a bit of love vs infantry
  3. Vordius grenadiers should do a little more base damage
  4. I know you mentioned AV but cyclops REALLY need help
  5. Decimus drop should not be affected by boundless siphon, or should have lower base health
  6. Shrouds are useless
  7. Fix issue where after our shield has dropped a new shield will come up if you have no shield on your base, hence you can start building a new shield whilst your first is dropping and then recycle your first shield after it drops and a new shield pops up once the 2nd one finishes.
  8. Shipmaster’s raid should be 2 points
  9. Recon training should give a bit more sight
  10. Kodiaks could see a health and speed increase
  11. Vordius’ hero is pretty useless
  12. Enforcers do a little too much base damage
  13. Slightly reduce the honor guard’s speed
  14. Increase the shiphon on shipmaster’s ultimate cloaking ability, as it’s pretty usless otherwise
  15. Turrets feel a little too strong vs tech 2 armies, is there a way to reduce damage to say anything that has tech 2/3 upgrades eg combat tech marines shouldn’t be destroyed by a few ai turrets and gauss hogs should take siege turrets shots a bit better.
  16. Buff cannon fodder upgrade quite a lot
  17. Increase velocity of methane wagons Y ability
  18. Slightly increase heavy grunt health (in particular vs some leader powers)
  19. Buff mantis base health
  20. Heros shouldnt go in bunker drop, but it’s health should increase by about 30-40%
  21. Make Johnson’s ultimate free building thing affect buying bases/ mini bases also
  22. Make wolverine speed match warthog speed (maybe)
  23. Reduce damage from reaver jump
  24. Increase scout damage to rush, particularly goliaths and enforcers
  25. Increase engineer health slightly
    I could probably go on all day and I’m sure I’ve forgotten some major stuff but this should be a start… sorry it’s so long
3

Johnson needs some heavy love. Siege turret drop’s 2nd level is fairly useless considering shields don’t help much when the entire idea is that the turret itself is out of combat. EMP MAC has meager damage in comparison to other LP3 abilities, while also having a lower damage ceiling in general (2 points vs the many that have 3). Those being his only two offensive powers makes his otherwise powerful T2 and T3 exclusive units lackluster in comparison to generic T2 and T3 units backed up by truly threatening abilities.

Enduring Salvo is also a little lackluster in the damage department but not to as large a degree.

While not a damaging power, glacial storm could stand a slight duration and/or freeze rate buff. Otherwise fairly lackluster as far as ultimates go.

Vultures, beyond their performance vs buildings, could stand a little more love towards their unit damage. I don’t feel scared of warthogs/marauders when I have a bunch if scorpions, but I feel scared of hornets/banshees when I have a bunch of vultures.

Detect almost entirely invalidates any potential for cloaking, so I think the range could be walked down a tad. Perhaps add a decreased detect range for points spent in advanced cloaking and on activation of mass cloaking. Maybe buff up the other passive effects on mass cloaking too.

Poor Voridus hero unit, still the worst if the bunch. Not sure what can be done to fix him though.

4

  1. Slightly Increase Anti-Vehicle Health because most leaderpowers will wipe out the anti-vehicle infantry and then guess what? You don’t have any. Maybe even their speed a very little. Low health and low speed but high damage don’t seem right.
    (

  2. Consider having leaderpower damage spread across units maybe? I’m not sure how that’d work but more people in the area should scale the damage down but still give everyone an equal amount of total damage but lower to their individual health. Maybe it’s just me but sometimes I feel like leaderpowers unskillfully turn the tide of an engagement and they’re essentially a “Press me and wipe all my low hp units.”

  3. Buff kodiak machine gun damage because they are horribly useless ( still probably will be useless)

i might be wrong on whatever I said about this patch as I haven’t played too much of anything yet but from most experiences in Halo Wars counters aren’t good at countering and leaderpowers dominate

5

Top of the morning to you.

Here’s my input.

> Cleansing Beam is too strong vs buildings.

Yes, 100 times yes. Leader powers killing buildings with little to no counter play is a very, very bad thing, especially when this ability is unlocked 3rd/4th point. Additionally, the speed of Glassing Beam could potentially be brought down slightly; it can be difficult to split out of with how fast it is. Reducing the speed is not needed, but I wouldn’t be against it.

> Air is no longer OP but in a solid spot vs AA.

Yes, please do not nerf air anymore; I enjoy it being viable. AA damage towards AV needs to lowered drastically, though I suggest looking into that ASAP.

> Jackrabbits still are not strong enough vs all forms of infantry besides core.

Yeah, JR’s are still a meme. For there cost, it’s not even worth building them. Even when affected by passives, they’re meh. I recommend looking into JR’s splash damage again, or increasing their damage substantially towards rush infantry. I want to be able to “snipe” out rush units from an infantry ball, and I currently cannot do this.

> Marines are a bit too strong early game.

I don’t think its their strength early game (T1) that is a problem, as much as their mid game strength (T2 - Combat Tech) is a problem. In most games, I feel confident making solely Marines against just about everything once I have Combat Tech researched. Fighting tanks with Marines should not be a thing.

> Anti-Vehicle isn’t anti vehicle enough in some engagements.

Hunters feel perfect where they are. They are doing everything they should be, IMO. However, Cyclops are horrendous; 95% of the time, it’s a better idea to use CT Marines instead of Cyclops to fight vehicles. Cyclops really only become useful when they have Shock Rounds researched and are supported by a blob of Nightingales; before this, just don’t even bother with them.

PS; pls give AV some base damage.

> Warthogs still need some love.

Warthogs are in an excellent place. The only area I feel they are lacking is against CT Marines. However, nerfing CT Marines may rectify this situation and a change may not be needed (on the Warthog side of things).

> Tanks and T3 Air need more building damage.

Yes, please. For how slow and expensive these units are, they should do more than tickle base. I would also like to see T3 air counter tanks more effectively, as well.

> Rangers are still too weak.

Without a doubt. Not worth their cost, hilarious compared to Snipers, and only strong when massed. Definitely need some love.

> Grunt mines and Countermeasure Brute Mines investigation to reduce damage vs vehicles including scouts.

I have always felt Grunt Mines countered scouts well, and the interaction felt solid, but I may be missing something. EDIT: tested this out a bit, yes, Grunt Mines could be toned downed down a whisker VS scouts. The buff on Grunts tipped this a little bit too far in the Grunts favour. As for countermeasures, yes, it should not do so well against scouts. Even with the recent nerf to Countermeasures, I still feel confident fighting scouts with Jump Brutes.

If there are any questions/concerns, I will gladly record some gameplay showcasing exactly what I am talking about.

I will add to this as things come to mind

  • For the love of all that is holy, please nerf Siege Turrets. Being able to fight entire armies with them is not okay.
6

  • **Cleansing Beam is too strong vs buildings.**A small nerf vs buildings is ok, but don’t touch them vs units please. It’s time people learned how to split correctly and quickly.

  • **Air is no longer OP but in a solid spot vs AA.**Yeah it’s fine. Maybe slightly improve air vs T2 core vehicles. No more than 10%.

  • **Jackrabbits still are not strong enough vs all forms of infantry besides core.**JR and Chopper too. They’re absolutely not worth it. They need:

  • Damage buff vs lightarmored for all scouts - previously they had large buffs vs lightrush, but they did better there than vs lightarmored. Flamers/Cryotroopers are hard to stop with these units. - Damage buff in general for JR and Chopper. They’re no match for Ghosts. - Grunt Mines counter them way too hard. Way harder than scouts counter the rush units. Coupled with the recent grunt buff, this is too much. - Their upgrades are a bit too expensive. Should go down a bit.

  • **Marines are a bit too strong early game.**CT marine rockets should share damage type with normal marines so that we get them to do the “right” damage vs rangers and T2 vehicles. They’re fine in the opening phases.

  • Anti-Vehicle isn’t anti vehicle enough in some engagements.

  • Massively nerf AA peashooters / reaver jump vs them please. At least -70%. - Cyclops could use a little health. - Hunters are excellent and should be left alone besides point 1.

  • **Wathogs still need some love.**Not really, it’s perfect if the marine thing above gets done. Mantis shields however could use a buff. They should be like 50% stronger than the shields of Ghosts.

  • **Tanks and T3 Air need more building damage.**Definitely yes for tanks. At least +20%. I’d like to see some more range on Blisterback artillery. Besides that I think we’re alright for the T3 air damage.

  • **Rangers are still too weak.**I’d rather see the previous patch sniper buffs reverted and kept for the Ranger. I think Rangers are actually good units. Maybe a very small power decrease is ok to do. -5 power?

  • **Grunt mines and Countermeasure Brute Mines investigation to reduce damage vs vehicles including scouts.**Already mentioned above, yes please.

Additional easy wins:

  • Buff Enduring Salvo again. - Kodiak cost/build rate nerfs should be reverted. Air buffs are sufficient to control turtle. - Mac Blast telegraph should be increased by 0.5s. - Nerf siege turret damage again, previous change was not noticable. - Do previously proposed Anders Sentinel changes: +1 pop, but +10% hp/dmg. - Flamehog drop cost should be 950 supply. It’s literally cheaper than making the units… - Investigate further CoR nerfs or LP cooldown nerfs for Arbiter and compensating with Plasma Bolt buffs.
7

I feel this way… air wasnt OP, deci boundless siphon was, and the changes made to it have ‘helped’ along with the AA survivability change. Im afraid air is going to become less viable now in 1s because of the building damage changes now.
This is why… air has been one of the only reliable ways to break bases late game, but with the changes i dont think there is enough damage potential there.
This is also why I agree that we need T3 to hit harder to be able to have more options to break bases, then air not playing a base breaking role wouldnt be that big of a deal.
Good notes Post, maybe you can make some room for that bunker price drop in there :wink:

8

Basically everything Naka said, except that MAC telegraph cos I main Izzy

9

> 2533274802267381;7:
> I feel this way… air wasnt OP, deci boundless siphon was, and the changes made to it have ‘helped’ along with the AA survivability change. Im afraid air is going to become less viable now in 1s because of the building damage changes now.
> This is why… air has been one of the only reliable ways to break bases late game, but with the changes i dont think there is enough damage potential there.
> This is also why I agree that we need T3 to hit harder to be able to have more options to break bases, then air not playing a base breaking role wouldnt be that big of a deal.

Yeah, I agree with this also. It’s possible to only nerf deci banshees by creating a hidden tech when Decimus’ passives unlock to weaker Deci banshees only. I’d do that and at least partially revert some prior changes.
There’s only ever been 3 air units that were too good:

  • Deci Banshees - Phantoms - Protector Sentinels.Instead we have people complaining about air as a whole, which is simply misleading.
10

Please, apart from talking about the balance update, we would like to see deathmatch of halo wars 1 and more variety of maps to play.

11

For crying out loud Postums!
My name is not Sgt. Palooggooggooggooggoolloo!
It’s Sgt. Palooggoo!

You’ve made the exact same mistake that Scumbag Yap Yap made in his messages to me!
He called me Pagogogogogo… :angry:
Disciplinary action will be taken for this insubordination soldier!

12

Actually i forgot about sonething we noticed last night. I’m not worried about banshees breaking bases late game. There was something in the change that im not sure if it was intentional or not, but i dont want to see this changed. When banshees get plasma torpedo they get the building damage nerf reverted. I like this because it just adds that extra utility to getting plasma torpedo, and really makes me wanna get it faster. Please don’t change that as i feel the banshees need it to keep their viability in check for late game base breaking. Also i still believe the hornets didn’t recieve their 5% building DPS buff they were suppose to get in the patch before this one. It said it was applied but the TTK was unchanged.

13

Only thing i can say is that T3 Air doesn’t need a buff against buildings. What could use a little buff is Sgt. Forges scatter bomb against air and ground units imo.

14

range increase for mastodons maybe to the same if not 10% more than marines

15

Im a banished man so…

  1. Cataclysm needs it’s damage or some duration back.
    Right now i’ve been hearing it does less damage then Infusion Tech 2 which is sad.
  2. Maelstrom telegraph increased.
    Its unavoidable, but every banished leader has an answer except Colony which is a bummer.
  3. Hunter Captain improvements vs. Core infantry.
    With the glitch to where he can’t do damage to squads he’s unreliable and isn’t worth getting.
  4. Vordius (Hero) buffs, and I mean major. Easily the 2nd worse Hero coming close to Jerome (Cutter)
    His health buff was so underwhelming when I tried it he still gets destroyed and does so little damage, a melee hero shouldn’t be a kiting hero.
    I suggest a speed buff and more health and damage.
  5. Methane Party buffed?
    I hate YapYap but why do we keep nerfing his ultimate? We got rid of the slow, nerfed it’s damage and its cooldown twice. It’s not worth it now imo.
  6. Get Back Out There! Buffs.
    Easily the worst Ultimate, 6 Infantry units respawned. Should be 10 or even 12 or should effect Grunt Goblins.
16

A few things off the top of my head.

Fixing Hunter Captain before siphon overcharge
Atrocious damage and slow not being applied before researching the upgrade. Here’s a couple of clips

Buff elite rangers
Nowhere near as good as snipers which are a tech lower though more expensive. Perhaps taking a page from the Yappening and adding another elite to the squad would make them more effective if adding upgrades to them isn’t an option

A buff to shrouds
If the new cloak detection remains then perhaps they should be better at point defense?

Mid to late game marines too powerful
This one is pretty obvious, marines are able to remain cost effective against vehicles

Maybe a slight buff to marauders as well as warthogs
I feel marauders take too long to build and aren’t as effective compared to the warthog and even the warthog is under-performing somewhat to marines. Though with a marine nerf this may be unneccesary

Elite enforcers are still pretty strong compared to their relatively low cost
A slight price increase to make them less spamable or slight decrease in damage to buildings

Not being refunded for Hunters Brand when losing line of sight before it fires, or having it just fire anyway.

AV buffs and nerf to Reaver jump damage
You know there’s something wrong when AA is beating Cyclops and Hunters

I almost exclusively play Banished (particularly Colony) so I can’t help as much on the UNSC front but I’m sure others have plenty of feedback to make up for it.

17

> 2533274958100139;6:
> - **Cleansing Beam is too strong vs buildings.**A small nerf vs buildings is ok, but don’t touch them vs units please. It’s time people learned how to split correctly and quickly.
>
>
> - **Air is no longer OP but in a solid spot vs AA.**Yeah it’s fine. Maybe slightly improve air vs T2 core vehicles. No more than 10%.
>
>
> - **Jackrabbits still are not strong enough vs all forms of infantry besides core.**JR and Chopper too. They’re absolutely not worth it. They need:
> - Damage buff vs lightarmored for all scouts - previously they had large buffs vs lightrush, but they did better there than vs lightarmored. Flamers/Cryotroopers are hard to stop with these units. - Damage buff in general for JR and Chopper. They’re no match for Ghosts. - Grunt Mines counter them way too hard. Way harder than scouts counter the rush units. Coupled with the recent grunt buff, this is too much. - Their upgrades are a bit too expensive. Should go down a bit. - **Marines are a bit too strong early game.**CT marine rockets should share damage type with normal marines so that we get them to do the “right” damage vs rangers and T2 vehicles. They’re fine in the opening phases.
>
>
> - Anti-Vehicle isn’t anti vehicle enough in some engagements. - Massively nerf AA peashooters / reaver jump vs them please. At least -70%. - Cyclops could use a little health. - Hunters are excellent and should be left alone besides point 1. - **Wathogs still need some love.**Not really, it’s perfect if the marine thing above gets done. Mantis shields however could use a buff. They should be like 50% stronger than the shields of Ghosts.
> - **Tanks and T3 Air need more building damage.**Definitely yes for tanks. At least +20%. I’d like to see some more range on Blisterback artillery. Besides that I think we’re alright for the T3 air damage.
> - **Rangers are still too weak.**I’d rather see the previous patch sniper buffs reverted and kept for the Ranger. I think Rangers are actually good units. Maybe a very small power decrease is ok to do. -5 power?
> - **Grunt mines and Countermeasure Brute Mines investigation to reduce damage vs vehicles including scouts.**Already mentioned above, yes please.
>
> Additional easy wins: - Buff Enduring Salvo again. - Kodiak cost/build rate nerfs should be reverted. Air buffs are sufficient to control turtle. - Mac Blast telegraph should be increased by 0.5s. - Nerf siege turret damage again, previous change was not noticable. - Do previously proposed Anders Sentinel changes: +1 pop, but +10% hp/dmg. - Flamehog drop cost should be 950 supply. It’s literally cheaper than making the units… - Investigate further CoR nerfs or LP cooldown nerfs for Arbiter and compensating with Plasma Bolt buffs.

Quote from discord:
I like the proposed changes, but I disagree with ’ It’s time people learned how to split’ with regards to beam damage. For a console based rts, this can only so effective. This isn’t like splitting marines in sc2 vs banelings. With a controller, you can split a few groups up here and there, but that’s it. With keyboard obviously it’s a lot easier
but this isn’t a pc based rts.

With that being said, I think a reduction in building damage is needed, and a small tweak in damage vs non-buildings should be considered. Don’t revert beam changes completely, but a small nerf to keep it a viable power would be acceptable. It has also only been a few days, and my first impressions could change from now.

18

I am going to throw my two cents into balance suggestions.

1- Cleansing beam is too powerful to buildings and to units, especially level 3. Even with good splits you take a lot of damage and lose upwards of 1/3 your third of your army dies as well, if you don’t see it than all your army. It is actually better than a lot of ultimates. I find it even worse in banished mirrors, because you can’t really attack in to a base when they have cleansing beam (level 3 basically kills banshees in 1 second with a large aoe). Reduced damage versus buildings is a must and if the damage output to infantry is the same than the units need to be able to run away so far reduced speed, or it can keep the speed but not the damage.

2- Kiodiaks need some help they are super population heavy, take a long time to build, take a long time to set up and frankly aren’t really worth the cost.

3- Sentinels should get that 1 pop increase and the stats slightly buffed change to round them out, especially with all the aa buffs.

4- Scouts I actually think scouts are not too bad, could use a slight buff versus light armoured, cheaper upgrade is a good idea and yeah the grunt mines are actually way to powerful against them. I have had a far amount of success switching to them to counter rushes.

5- Marines, for the love of god don’t nerf them. Banished have suicide grunts which make it dangerous to even go large amounts of infantry, not to mention Rangers just got buffed. For UNSC flamers handedly beat them they are fine as is in the early game. I do not see much of a problem with them at all.

6-Retriever Sentinel could use a nerf it’s damage versus buildings halved and only by like 15% versus tier 2 vehicles. Air can avoid most of the damage but it is difficult to make aa work against it.

7- Tanks/heavy air I agree with increasing building damage.

8- Cyclopes could use a small health buff but are otherwise fine.

9- Warthogs if buffed need a minor one. Like 3% Health or damage.

10- Breaking Banished! By far the most important thing that needs to be addressed! Sitting on bases is too difficult to break in this game still especially for unsc.
I know you know that i’m going to suggest this but nightingales smoke needs to affect units under it to force units out of the shield/shut down mega turrets/reduce incoming damage so that they have more of a chance opening up the base
Shields also could be more fragile.

11- Scarabs could use a nerf in my opinion, increased cooldown on their immunity ability, reduced damage versus buildings (right now kind of melts hqs) or unsc condor needs to do better specifically versus it since right now scarabs roll right over the condor.

19

I have a problem (I do not know if I only have it or not) but when I go online (I play from my PC) on HW2 and the online game starts, when I give an order to a unit (to move or to cancel his move), it takes 3 seconds, so I can not enjoy the game as much as I want it to. There isn’t any sychronization between my clicks, even in the menu. I do not know if it’s the server’s problem, but whoever I know that plays from Xbox One doesn’t have this problem.

20

Mantis of jerome need somme speed, its broken the hero.