Patch 1.4.2 Changes, Discuss!

Dark Elf:  Well, good, but still difficult.. I feel more its a debuff than a buff.. it will be more difficult to make him stronger.
Dwarves: Well I thought more the stacking will be disabled, but thats okay too.. thats actually nearly like 10% less defensive.
Shaolin: good, finally the monk gets more slight more useable.. poisoner is an self-entertainer okay.
Team Fortress 2: sniper is again .. the perfect canonfood. heavy, well i guess thats good.

The speed boost tile map looks much tamer now (as we requested).  Looks good.

Heavy is now 3-shottable by buffed Soldiers and Pyros, instead of having 30 hp left. It was interesting, a buffed Medic rezzing and healling a Heavy could get him to 1170 health in 3 heals, which left him open to being 3 shot. Most people didn't bother healing that extra 30 health, but it was occasionally a potential game-changer. But I guess Medics can heal and link to a Heavy more easily now
 
There's probably other units which can take advantage of the 100 health nerf, but that was just the first that came to mind.

Minor change, honestly, but helpful (primarily against TF2's weird damage numbers).

Did anybody want this? I haven't crunched the numbers but I doubt this is going to be a big change against nearly anyone. I guess strictly speaking you can 5-shot a paladin with a base 200 unit, but unless a scroll is used you can't even stomp the paladin, so... exposed healers left in vulnerable positions are vulnerable?

Bigger issue against dwarves is safety of offensive units + equipment + pally aura + shields, none of which got touched, allowing said offensive units to do ridiculous amounts of AOE damage, which most teams have limited or no tools to deal with.
 
TL,DR: Paladin HP nerf solves no actual problems faced by opponents of dwarves, and no actual fixes were introduced to problems that DO exist. Lolwut?

Monk movement increase will certainly make them more dangerous offensively. Would like to see the "Monk is stomped so debuff goes away" or some other way to deal with the permanent HP debuff, which is unlike anything else in the game. (Most buffs/debuffs last for 1 application, AND many require either a consumable or a vulnerable unit to be involved, unlike the high HP Monk)
 
The Poisoner didn't need a buff. The poisoner debuff was (in my opinion) already overpowered, especially combined with the possibility of dragon + bamboo ranged stomp nonsense. Even a small increase in this debuff is a change in the WRONG direction, while windblades and Taoists continue to be mediocre in every way.
Summary: Yay monk buff, WTF poisoner buff? Windblade and Taoist weakness ignored.

TF2 has so many fundamental issues that it's nearly impossible to actually talk balance. That said, Heavies NEED to be tough, because  everything else on the team falls over and dies. TF2 having 4 blockers (counting spies against range, which doesn't apply to tough melee combatants like void monks or ninjas) is not inappropriate. 
Snipers need to be fundamentally rebalanced. Full-row range has never been fair, but without that gimmick PLUS significant crouch damage they are terrible units. Snipers need to be useful, but not overpowered, and current design basically precludes that.

 
Wow. Stupefide. For the first time I can honestly say I agree 100% with Jwallyr!
 
 
 

I don't understand the Wraith-griping... Of COURSE it's still worth it to level him up -- he still gains +50 attack and +100 HP (rather than the previous +150 HP) per feeding. All this change does is flatten out his progression slightly so that he isn't quite as fragile early. If you think you're suddenly going to see a lot of vanilla, level-1 Wraiths running around the board, you're crazy.
 

Huh? I never called for a Heavy nerf.

I'm currently up against a shielded, healmed, double bombed, single fed (at least I think) wraith. It's at 1235 HP. A more consequetial buff than meets the eye?

It was equipped before the patch, but I think this is irelevent anyway. Contrary to what I would have assumed, it appears that pre-set values actually are recalculated; a pre-debuffed necro was already at -50% when I played my first post-patch turn.

Horay! many months later some progress! I might finally be able to play again...
Predictions:

• Council: Fine, baseline
• Dark Elves: should be good now, if they do poorly or too well it will be against a specific faction and require some very specific attention. But I think overall they should be great now and inline with Council. They needed the Wraith to be just a touch more survieable when spawned, and this will ensure it; now you don't need to worry about AOE KO'ing your wraith if he is next to the main target (good for range-stomp-spawning wraith in deep board situaitons).
• Dwarves: Will still dominate because nothing was done to reduce their overall AOE output, and easy engineering bubble placements. I do think the paladin change is a good one, it may not actually do much to reduce their tankiness, however another further change to their offense would be welcome in a future patch, like making the Grenader do 45% splash instead of 50%. Until then they will still out perform all teams to a degree (minus TF2 with whom they are about equal) and be very dangerous vs. teams with AOE vulnurability: namely Shaolin and to a degree TF2 (if it becomes a teamturtle vs. dwarf fortress battle of attrition).
• TF2: Sniper change is great, 1-shot jarate was just too good, now it at least takes 2 shots with jarate to KO something and thus requires you to move with 2 or 3AP for the stomp instead of having 3 or 4AP left to spare. that will make the game a lot more fair. The heavy change will mainly be of importance with attrition battles (with AOE) and thus not very substantial. I still think the team will be in the top-2 teams, together with Dwarves, but they did get a bigger nerf than Dwarves, but not so much so that they are going to be measurably worse than dwarves.
• Tribe: sadly got zero improvements. At a minimum they needed the witch to do 66% splash, maybe even 75% splash. Or the Cheiftan had to have its splash damage increase a few percent instead. Until they can get some AOE damage increases they will continue to be a tier 3 team.
• Shaolin: Monk change is great, although I would have prefered a mini-charge like the Cheiftan (move 2 AND hit in a straight line in 1 AP). The constant 3-move will make this unit into a hit-and-run piece which is certainly viable, but not necessarily the type of piece I would have wanted it to become, had I been designing it. (A mini-charge would have allowed it to engage much easier and to get combos, but would have made it harder to then retreat far back after hitting). The Poisoner +10% neg is very significant, and now the unit is powerful on its own without any support, which sort of breaks the need for a combo to begin with. You can get a lot of value by doing 1 turn neg with poison, next turn whack with bonus 50% to get quick KO. The team will still suffer vs. AOE attackers greatly, but at least now will put out more damage on the offense. Like everyone else I think that the team should have had the windblade buffed, not the poisoner. It would have been better to have several good players on the roster instead of it all being about the 1-big guy and the 3 ladies (shadow and poisoner). I don't think these changes will make the team move up to the level of Dwarves/TF2, but they will now certainly be at least as good as Tribe, and ~maybe~ as good as Council/DE but that remains to be seen. Instead I predict that at their best they will / could be beter now than Tribe, but probably not as good as Council/DE. Shaolin should be very capable now of winning against DEs and Tribe in particular.

 
So the tiers are now, IMHO:
TIER 1: Dwarves and TF2
TIER 2: Council and Dark Elves
TIER 3: Tribe and Shaolin
With a bit less distance now between Tier 1 and 3, and Shaolin may be more of a 2.5 than a 3 (TBD). So the only real change here is that Dark Elves are probably now in the same tier as Council instead of being a hair below them, and Shaolin are now not tier 4 but at least tier 3.

you did get a heavy nerf, it just was to 1100 instead of to 1000 which means that it's change will be minor rather than significant. Still requires 6 hits from a 200 attack unit, still dies to 4 hits from a 300 attack unit and still dies in 3 hits to an attack of 450.

So when it's still the same AP required to kill the heavy, where is the nerf?

 
Don't get me wrong, I still anticipate Wraiths being primarily useful as a super-stomp, but this makes him just a little less fragile initially, however he's deployed. And I waited months ands months for your League challenge (which, you announced several times, you were just about to issue) -- now you'll just have to wait a few months more. Maybe by that time we'll have gotten a meaningful Dwarf nerf...  ;)

I do agree with Trip that Dwarves didnt get hit very hard, and think there is a good chance that a few months from now, League data will show they are the strongest team.  Still, the gap should clearly be diminished somewhat -- the pally nerf is not trivial. 

 
By "not trivial" I only meant that I think it will come into play more than people think.  At least the way I play, Pallies often take damage and dont get fully healed right away, so 100 points less could easily bring them below a threshhold.  If nothing else, the axethrower can 3 shot an ungeared pally now.  I still classify it as a small nerf, and *much* smaller than TF2 got, but it will help some.    

.. huh?

i remember it something more like this... : i asked you, but you said you were busy atm and couldnt play for a couple of weeks or something. But ohwell that doesnt matter, the next nerf dwarves get we can try a game. I'll send one to you instantly when that happens. in maybe.. 5months? :)

and agree on the dwarf nerf, i dont really see what it did except cause more turtling and improve TRs axe-throwers vs DW.s..