Assassin: My favorite class to play, primarily because it's the only class that can actually make effective offensive base raids before 15-20 minutes into the game. I must say, though, that the L1 is completely overpowered. It means that I don't need to get any HP upgrades and just enough armor to kill spawns easily, and I'm set for the game provided I can dodge a Medic's L3 and avoid double teams during the day. My suggestion is instead of a cooldown, merely a 3 second charge up before the spell is cast. It's simply far too good compared to other L1's.
Warrior: L2 spell was addressed in this update, and I haven't had a chance to test that out yet, but it's rather easy to spam 3 times and completely immobilize a hero. I'd think a 1 or 2 second cooldown would be fitting, allowing a sort of cat and mouse game in that short timeframe to avoid a second prison. Also, the warrior's L3 spell stuns the warrior for almost as long as it stuns the opponent, meaning you have to chain it with a level 2 or have teammate support or it's completely worthless except for killing spawns. It can end up killing you almost as easily as your opponent. I'm almost thinking that simply switching the Warrior's level 2 and level 3 would be the best solution...
Medic: L4 plus 3 man teams = imbalanced. My only thought is to restore each character to the HP that it has leveled up to plus 10% or something along those lines, but give the Medic full hp.
Dark Mage: L1 is a joke. With 80 mana and an orb I can maelstrom you 5 times if I'm at all a decent caster. That's just laughable. My thought here is to make the Dark Orb start with 10-15 less mana than the requisite to cast maelstrom. This would allow a decent enemy to get away without proper pursuit and/or ensnare.
Light Mage: Longer cooldown on L1. I know it's there, but it's too strong irregardless, melee classes have no chance to deal damage without taking the brunt of the next cast. This delves into the hard counters I referred to earlier.
Spec Ops: The marine with mass mines can do very well, especially when he has lots of HP. Mine spamming plus mass assimilators pretty much means that a non-ranged team has lost. A tentative solution is to limit the maximum number of mines, I'm not exactly sure what is reasonable as I cannot stand playing this class.
Mutant: My second favorite class, and I have to say that lurker bombing is just too easy. Supposedly the overall damage was lowered in the recent version, but the lurkers became more armor piercing, so I'll have to see how that works out, it seems like a backwards solution to be honest; that makes them more efficient at killing heroes in the late game, though it will potentially stop early lurker rushes. On the whole, the Mech is the only character that can actually outrun the Mutant's lurkers. The fact that he can burrow and cast it at night too makes it a nightmare, especially since he is the only character which can see in the dark. He'd counter himself well, but,
Mech: Because of its versatility, the Mech is a hard counter to multiple classes. The life on a Mech with even just two forms and a few +4%'s is extraordinary. A solution is beyond me, other than the obvious lowering of HP which would make the Mech very vulnerable early game. As it is, though, the Mech can easily have 10000-12000 life, so I think this is necessary.
Other general suggestions:
- Fewer and more powerful spawns is good. Less grinding and more micro to gain experience is a welcome change, rather than just one hitting spawns. (I hope this was changed, from what I've read on the new version...) In time perhaps players will begin to last hit for kills purposefully. It's a shame that the SC system can't incorporate denies efficiently.
- Cannons are too tough defensively. Spawns, even broodlings, should be able to damage them over time, letting one team who is controlling the map and spawns gain an advantage by doing so. The plasma shields and armor upgrades are to blame, here. The damage could possibly be lowered, but it doesn't need to be if the armor is. This would make them cheaper. as a result, and would allow their usage to become more common, too.
- Pylon hunting is too easy. Making the cannons easier to kill, however, could potentially alleviate this problem, so this need not be addressed if that change is made.
- Too much Temple armor. In order to prevent the summoner from completely destroying it, it definitely needs some armor, I'd suggest 20 or 25. With that armor, 30,000-50,000 life would be raidable by any character, requiring more active defensive and offensive roleplaying. This does not display, however, so one way to alleviate this would be to stack multiple temples with 9999 life. This of course makes the temple more susceptible to the Mech's Tanks, Mutant's Lurkers, and especially Volt. If this is a problem, toggle invulnerability on only one temple at a time, changing when the first is killed, though emphasizing splash classes as offensive could definitely add an interesting and fun element to the game.
This armor change would be an enormous one in relation to the game, coupled with the ability to destroy pylons and cannons with more ease if you have map control on a lane. I play as the Assassin solely because I can make the game more interesting by focusing on destroying the temple. Every other class except perhaps the Warrior and Mech are essentially forced to kill heroes for the vast majority of the game, until such point that the game has usually become decided anyway, and destroying the temple or portions of the enemy base merely a (usually obnoxiously long) formality.
I have one other rather large suggestion, but I'll hold on that one until I see the reception given to these.
Thanks guys, I welcome critical responses.
FaZ- aka Decency
None.