This post is going to go over my thoughts on balance as a whole. I am of the opinion that there should be no “early game” faction and no “late game” faction between the Banished and UNSC, and my thoughts on balance will be based around this. I feel like I’m going to be pretty fair on BOTH sides, because neither side is without flaw.
As a whole, I think the UNSC is too dominating early game, and Banished is too dominating late game (locusts, anyone?). UNSC just seems to fall off the later a game goes. I think a good part of this can be attributed to the mobility of forces- UNSC vehicles are slow as a wet turd and Banished forces can teleport.
To begin with, general unit balance.
UNSC BALANCE:
Jackrabbits: To begin with, the elephant in the room: Jackrabbits. They require too little commitment to spam out, and unlike infantry rushes (which what I think rushes should be) allows for transitions into tech and fast map control. In my opinion, two things need to be done with them. First, increase the energy cost of their upgrades, and make the support drone tech 3. It takes far too little investment to have a force that can kill any other scout. Second, nerf their damage against turrets. Stronger turrets encourage the use of anti-building infantry, which is what the game intended. This would at least force some more dedicated investment into a rush, so that the turtle- tech- rush triangle would function more effectively.
Marines: Marines are in a fine spot early game, but fall off in utility later. For some reason, combat tech marines lose to pack brother grunts. That just shouldn’t be a thing, given that they cost more. This really hurts UNSC late-game utility. They should do more damage off of combat tech to compete with late game grunt squads.
Kodiaks: Kodiaks are great tech 2 siege units, but fall off as you progress longer into a match. To keep them viable, I feel like the game needs at least some sort of uprade for them on tech 3 to make sure they stay in play.
Scorpions: Scorpions need a blanket buff desperately, again. Part of why the Banished has so much late game utility is because wraiths, and their other vehicle units, are so strong. This makes sense, as wraiths are tech 3 and cost a large amount of recourses. They are meant to be dominating units. The problem is, there isn’t a solid UNSC equivalent. Scorpions cost more in both supply and population that wraiths, yet somehow lose to them. That’s absurd. Not to mention, the canister shell is a complete waste of recourses due to the tank’s seeming inability to use it. I think scorpions need a buff in all areas to increase their combat effectiveness and make them a viable UNSC answer to vehicle play.
Hornets: Might need a slight buff. They just don’t seem to have the damage they should for cost, and lose easily to equivalent populations of banshees. This is another thing that would help UNSC mid- late game. They cost more recourses and population than banshess- so they should stomp them! Same principle as the scorpion applies.
Wolverines: These things suck right now. Make them have splash damage like the Reaver, or shoot faster. You need way too many of them to cope with air, and they cost a lot of recourses.
Retriever Sentinel: For how much this thing costs, it shouldn’t be as bad as it is. Give it a buff so it can at least slightly compete with other super units, and isn’t relegated to nothing more than a last ditch effort. I’d say increasing it’s health drastically is a must, and a slight buff to damage.
Cyclops: Increase movespeed. It simply can’t catch wraiths or locusts, crushing it’s utility. Fix this, and it’s good.
All Spartans: Please, for the love of the god, make them function like spartans. They suck, and need to justify their cost on max level.
Banished Balance:
Honor Guard / Warlord: Both need big buffs. Being the only heroes that can’t hit air, they should deal a lot more damage on ground. Also, being melee single target, they need to hit like trains to justify their costs. Increase their health and damage, and fix the bugs regarding attacking mobile targets. This should help them significantly to see more play.
Atriox’s Chosen: Desperately needs a nerf to it’s health while in cover. It’s borderline unkillable. Fix this, and is seems to perform like a hero should.
Locusts: I think that locusts are the single biggest reason the banished are so, so strong in the late game. They are fast, shoot while moving, and have strong damage against all unit types. Not to mention, they have ridiculous range, and when positioned correctly will level a base before you can get close. They need a heavy nerf, desperately. Heck, they need the single biggest nerf in the game. The locust is the single best unit in HW2, and is absurdly broken. Several things need to be done to it. First of all, it’s imperative that it’s damage against non- structures is nerfed. The locust has a neutral attack modifier on both infantry and vehicles- yellow designation. That needs to change. It’s damage against non-structures to be absolutely minimal. The locust is meant to be a building killing siege unit, not an answer to everything. Furthermore, it’s speed needs to be nerfed. The fact that the locust can outrun literally every unit in the game aside from warthogs and scouts is ridiculous, and needs a fix. Make them slower, so they’re more of a gamble to build like in HW1. Players should be building 3-4 of them as support attackers on bases, not a full army that kills everything with proper micro.
Engineers: The engineers are cheaper than the nightingale, and take less population, but are better in almost every way. Their constant stream of healing means they can rapidly heal anything, even in combat. This is a bit unfair the the UNSC, who don’t have a similar solution in combat. I think that the rate of healing on the engineer needs to be nerfed, to prevent a small cluster of them from making units unkillable. Also, their rate of healing should be drastically reduced on units in combat. This would help nerf the borderline unbreakable Atriox scarab turtles.
Hunters: Same as cyclops, they need to be a tad faster. The hunter is one of the slowest units in the game, and other units can run circles around it. Also, it needs to be able to use the beam cannon while moving- right now, the beam cannon is a waste of recourses because you can’t chase and shoot.
Reaver: I think damage and health are fine. However, the missiles need to retarget after a unit is destroyed, not fly into oblivion. This would make them a more viable solution to mass air.
Blisterback: Missiles need to continue to make impact on a spot after a unit dies. Right now, they’ll kill their initial target, then the remainder of the volley will fly away into the great beyond. This makes the blisterbacks unable to actually kill units, and once a group is on low health they can only kill units one at a time.
Jump Brutes: Ai pathing needs improvement. Like two of them will attack a target and the rest will run in circles chasing butterflies or something. This needs to be fixed to make a brute rush viable.
I’m going to continue to update this for thoughts on buildings and leader-specific issues, but I don’t have time now. Stay tuned!
game is fine. More 