Blizzard blesses WC3 with another patch update - Elf buffs and more! 

1:02:17 I had to scour my memory, but lo and behold, this item already exists. Or... rather it used to. Wand of Neutralization does exactly this, dispels buffs/debuffs but doesn't affect summoned units. It was a bit special though, in the sense that it should work like an AoE dispel, but if you target a unit, only units of that allegiance would be affected (enemy or allied). The item icon was a jagged ass curvy wand with a purple glow around it. But yeah, put that back in instead of Wand of Negation and it should cover the need for dispelling buffs/debuffs.

I appreciate the closer look at the exact current numbers and the patch history of certain chainges. It puts everything in a better context.

Thanks for keeping WC3 Alive

5:19 So, in wc3, each unit rolls dice whenever they make a basic attack and then add their base damage to the roll to get their final damage (which is then further reduced by armor and so on) Each damage upgrade you get increases the number of dice rolled for each unit affected by it by 1. The number of sides the dice that each unit rolls has is different from unit to unit, but is generally somewhere between 4 and 12. This means that the average bonus damage for an attack upgrade is somewhere between 2.5 and 6.5, with units that roll larger dice gaining a higher bonus and the ones rolling smaller dice getting a smaller bonus. It should be noted that rolling multiple dice means that even though the unit will show a fairly large damage range, it will mostly get an average result due to it rolling a lot of dice :)

I'm ok with further moonwell buffs, if they, for compesation, delete nightelve from the game.

Potm changes are so lazy. Community give them good suggestions.. at least rework owl somehow, make it killable and some skills for it

I hate Taurens at tier 2. Taurens/Knights/Bears/Aboms are supposed to be tier 3. It's iconic. It makes sense. It's streamlined.

Frost wyrm should get the SC2 battlecruiser treatment so they can continuously attack while moving. drop the move speed and make frost breath an iconic attack.

Perhaps the purchase of the wand of denial requires Temple of the Damned to purchase the item, and with that it will be a level 2.4 or so

I don't think mana shield and immolation is comparable in activation. They do different things. While there is a huge advantage to toggle immolation on/off that it justifies an activasion cost, there is no advantage to toggle mana shield on/off. It would be perfectly fine to remove the activation cost.

Blizzard buff elf to help grubby finaly reach top 1 with it, how kind of them

Give Soul Burn a 0.5 sec mini stun on cast. It would fit it's identity of doing everything at once and might just make it good enough to be played.

2:52 feedback doesn't drain mana from friendly units, the clip should've had the hero and the tower as enemies

Lmao the double sundering blades typo

Great video as always Grubby People can complain all they want about Reforged but the patches are awesome! Thank you for listening to the various balance feedback sources from the community Here are my additional suggestions from my 20 years of wc3 followage Neutral Beastmaster Strength increased from 22 to 24 Level-2 hawk hit points increased from 450 to 625 Level-3 hawk hit points increased from 650 to 875 Stampede cast range increased from 300 to 900 Summon Bear cooldown decreased from 40 seconds to 35 seconds Beastmaster playrate is very low in casual play and especially in pro play. The changes partially revert the nerfs the Beastmaster received in 2003 when people were still learning about Wc3. Now 20 years later the Beastmaster can have some power back. Plus 2 strength will increase creeping speed and survivability especially when played as a first hero. Hawk buffs will incentivise attempting maxing Hawk first strategies. The stampede cast range increase allows him to stand a little further back while channeling helping this rarely seen and underwhelming ultimate. Death and Decay (1000 Range) Tornado (900 Range) Pitlord Rain of Fire mana cost reduced from 85 to 75 Rain of Fire cooldown reduced from 85 to 75 Rain of Fire level 2 area of effect increased from 200 to 250 Rain of Fire level 3 area of effect increased from 250 to 300 Doom Guard (Summonend) Ultimate turn rate increased from 0.4 to 0.5 Doom Guard (Summonend) Ultimate movement speed increased from 270 to 320 Pitlord Rain of Fire is literally a dead ability. Mana cost and cooldown reduction put him on par with Archmage blizzard. Area of effect increase gives incentive to Rain of fire max builds. Pit Lord Ultimate is great fun but often very underwhelming because the doomguard is slow and clunky. The movement speed increase will give him the same movement speed as the Dreadlords Infernal. Firelord Summon Lava Spawn level 2 mana cost reduced from 150 to 125 Summon Lava Spawn level 3 mana cost reduced from 150 to 100 Soul burn can now target mechanical units Soul burn level 2 cooldown reduced from 12 to 8 seconds Soul burn level 3 cooldown reduced from 12 to 4 seconds Soul burn level 2 mana cost reduced from 65 to 50 mana Soulburn level 3 mana cost reduced from 65 to 35 mana The latest changes have been great for Firelord playrate but he still suffers from Lava Spawns high mana cost and Soulburn being useless. 150 Mana at all 3 levels is a lot for any race that has mana issues. When will you ever have Soulburn level 3? Yes it should be strong when you get it at level 5. Why not help him if it doens't break the game and makes him viable for more races. Alchemist Chemical Rage level 2 cooldown reduced from 30 to 26 seconds Chemical Rage level 3 cooldown reduced from 30 to 22 seconds The Alchemist is in a great spot but chemical rage builds are not really a thing. This will inecntive trying strategies evolving around maxing chemical rage. Dark Ranger Life Drain level 2 cooldown reduced from 8 to 6 seconds Life Drain level 3 cooldown reduced from 8 to 4 seconds Life Drain level 2 mana cost reduced from 50 to 35 mana Life Drain level 3 mana cost reduced from 50 to 20 mana The buffs for life drain haven't been enough. Further improving life drain max builds. This will help the Dark Ranger to life steal again after being interrupted. Tinker Pocket Factory level 3 detonation dmg increased from 80 to 90 Pocket Factory level 2 mana cost reduced from 125 to 115 Pocket Factory level 3 mana cost reduced from 125 to 100 Pocket Factory level 2 cooldown reduction reduced from 35 seconds to 30 Pocket Factory level 3 cooldown reduction reduced from 35 seconds to 25 Pocket Factory has very low playrate. This will incentivise more Pocket Factory play. Pocket Factory Detonation damage starts at 30dmg then 60dmg at level 2 so it only makes sense that getting a third level in it should reward you the same amount. Human Bloodmage Banish movement speed reduction reduced from 50% to 10% This will help Blood Mage first strategies and Bloodmage play in general. Banish slowing less will help microing your own units to safety making this ability a lot more valuable and skill emphasized. Orc Blademaster Agility increased from 22 to 24 Reverting the nerf from 2018. Orc is struggling in the undead matchup in the pro scene where blademaster was always the go to hero. Claw nerf plus the agility nerf really hurt him. This will help in the early game where creeping speed and health is especially important. Night Elf Demon Hunter base Agility increased from 21 to 22 Reverting the nerf from 2018. Elf is struggling a little bit in every match up in the pro scene. Claw nerf plus the agility nerf really hurt the Demon Hunter. This will help in the early game where creeping speed and health is especially important. Items Permanent level 5 Medallion of Courage stat increase changed from +5 to +6 for each stat provide. Helm of Valor stat increase changed from +5 to +6 for each stat provide. Hood of Cunning stat increase changed from +4 to +6 for each stat provide. As of now these items drop at a red spot creep camp which also drops very powerful aura items. Heroes mainly desire their main attribute so these items are basically worse than having 2 items that you could find at a lvl 1 green creep camp. For Example 2x +3 Mantle of Intelligence would have more impact on an int hero. In the same sense a level 4 permanent item like Boots of Quel'Thalas +6 would be more desirable for an Agility hero. These items really need to be adjusted to +6 or even +7. Permanent level 3 Ring of Regeneration is now in the level 2 permanent item drop table Ring of Regeneration cost and sell value adjusted to 125 / 75 Currently there are only 3 items in the level 2 drop table. Ring of regeneration fits in nicely and frees up the stuffed level 3 drop table. Experience The experience bonus for having a single Hero and owning a tier-2 or tier-3 town hall increased to +20%/+35% from +15%/+30%. A buff to Solo hero Ultimate rush strategies. This will make seeing ultimates a little bit more common especially in 1v1 / pro play. This will also open up for more strategies and heroes with currently low play rate. It would also be great if you made Warcraft 3 free to play. This could attract a lot of new players especially younger players and potentially open up an income source for blizzard through skin and other in game content sales. Thank you for reading!

we are blessed

I said last update video PotM arrow could easily be 15/30/45.

I love playing nightelf lately, since watching grubby making an army of different animals. Looked magical and natural at the same time.

grubby content is getting me back into WC3!

Please Blizz team, make polymorph require multiple dispels (not on hero). Would totally counter the expenses and be a much more fun solution that simply making it a cheap and weak spell.

1:05:00 What if we change the cooldown for the first purchase of the Wand of Negation? Like the Scroll of healing in the Goblin Merchant or Tavern Heros.

Great breakdown, thanks! I'm thinking about installing WC3 again... . . .

Great video :D

I recently started playing. Which race would you recommend for new players?

what do you think about making the anti-magic potion immune to dispel? seems like something that would specifically address ne vs ud imbalance

as someone just getting into the games multiplayer, added context of how itd be use and why its important is really helpful!

I would love if they revisited having a true development team on the game and adding the races they could. But I also wouldn't mind really bizarre changes (LIMITED ones) like moving moonwells and silly things like that. Of course, Blizzard likely has a VERY limited development devotion to this game so even the silly stuff is out of the question.

1:18:14 Checking up on the different Mercenary Camp units, especially the trolls, is weird. The Forest Shadow Priest (the cheap level 2 one) has access to Abolish Magic. Their Dark Troll and Ice Troll Shadow Priest brethren do not. But the Forest also costs 20 gold more. The level 4 trio or the High Priests - the ones affected by this change - the Dark troll is the only one lacking Abolish Magic. However for some odd reason the Forest troll variant costs 305/40 gold/lumber to the 255/30 of the Dark and Ice variants. The signature ability for each is Dark: Sleep, Forest: Inner Fire, Ice: Frost Armor. There's no other apparent differences. This is quite bizarre.

With all the changes recently, do you think its possible that they will add a new Building or Unit to the game or a new Tavern hero?

For wand of negation, set the stock to 0 and give it a purchase time of 1 minute like items are in the goblin shop at the start of the game

Yay!

Ne vs Hu -> Struggle Ne vs UD -> Almost 37% win rate on official stats NE VS orc -> Almost complete balanced

I kinda wanted to make a small point about gloves of haste change. Having looked up some numbers, PotM seems to have about 2.3322 BCD. With her agility, at lvl 6 without any items or stat changes she has about ~1.53 attack cooldown; the updated gloves will bring that to ~1.35, which means that the bonus even to a higher-level agility hero is +13.3%. And in case of PotM vs BM comparison, there is the opportunity cost to consider: BM benefits greatly from claws of attack and other extra damage items, whereas PotM has (will have) insanely good base damage with fire arrows. So if your BM has 45 average damage at lvl 6, a +5 damage item will give him more than 10% dps increase, meanwhile for PotM a +5 damage item with her 90+ average damage will be barely above 5% bonus to her dps. On the other hand, extra attack speed of 20 will give both of them about the same increase of 10-15% extra dps (depending on their current agility stat). Tl;dr because of high basic damage PotM is more interested in gloves over claws, while BM enjoys both equally, and thus imho saying that the change will help BM more than PotM is slightly twisted.

Could you please put a link to the patch notes in the description for videos like this one? Would be REALLY helpful! :)

Huge fan man. Keep doing what you are doing!

Worth buying considering everything?

Hi Grubby, I think a good way to deal with wind riders would be to add a tier3 upgrade to increase their armor and health.

I watched your video about your fantasy patch before this so not sure what you thought of first but I like your idea for Wand of Negation to be dependent on having Temple of the Damned. It's still earlier than something like Priest Dispel or Walker Disenchant (since they require the new building AND an upgrade) but not so early that it could be an unfair advantage. Edit: Love Land Before Time!

are they buffing moonwell to try to move away from the reliance on bears? many elf are forced to get bears because at a certain point there's just no way to keep up healing so you're forced to go for bears in longer games

Tweaks for the mercs and creeps, neato

For the dispel damage to summon potential change to wand of negation they can just set the damage to 0 (since different dispel does different amount of damage and im pretty sure they can set it to 0)

I am an undead player. I think the web upgrade increase is completely reasonable. HONESTLY, I think the ability needs a cooldown increase. Require 2 fiends to perma lock air is way more in line with other units abilities. For death an decay, I have ALWAYS thought, it should have a channel cost instead of a high initial cost. As long as it is concellable (Which it should be) having a high initial cost just makes it unplayable. giving like 50 initial cost, and then a channeling cost that will total to 200 by the end of the duration I think makes it actually usable. Nerubian tower change is probably good. It makes the choice between spirit and nerubian more meaningful. Boneyard: You have talked alot about how it is sucks that the boneyard only makes 1 unit, so it is SUPER telegraphed. IMO they should tie the boneyard as a prereq for some upgrades or something. basically, if they make a building you will grab a lot of the times for OTHER reasons, THEN it removes the telegraphing. Ideally I would like a new unit from them or a bigger change BUT that is a lot to ask. Having boneyard have researchable upgrades for like Gargoyles and destroyers might do it.

What if Big Bad Voodoo kept units from dying when their hp reached zero instead of making them invulnerable? So you could have a gaggle of 0 hp grunts soaking up damage until they cancel the spell.

Looks insane enough, someone really trying with these patches

Here is a suggestion for knights: Since Sundering blades increase damage against normal armor (where knights already shine), it might be better to have "Trample" passive - bonus against unarmoured units. Makes sense thematically, plus would help the knights against banshees if they manage to flank them and take them out before being possessed.

Item tier list will go hard

They saw the tierlist and decided to buff them

I dont even play this game anymore since R*forged came out, but listening to what buffs/nerfs mean in greater context, going over history, and also how matches have been affected is so entertaining that I have to watch the whole thing in a single sitting at 3 am. Editing is also well paced and retains my attention even if I'm just passively watching.

The only Troll High Priest Merc is the Forest one. But the only Troll High Priest without Abolish Magic is Dark (out of 4 I think?)

Dun forget mana shield does not take in armor reduction so you would not even pick lv 3 in regards to moon wells.

You missed the point that saundering blades scales with the normal weapon upgrades

How about giving temple of the damned requirement for wand of negation?

Wand of negation tier 2 but put cooldown for getting it after getting tier 2 around 2 minutes

I havent played simce they got rid of tier 1 ultravision lol. I didnt even know. I loved stalking ppl for the perfect creep jack using mostly keeper lol

I'll wait for the day that allows you to select more than 12 at once!

When stuff from PTR goes live?

Truly SICKENING... As a UD player, let me tell you: Crypt Lord was *FINE* with that 100 mana cost on Impale. In fact, I'd argue even that CL is actually *TOO STRONG* in his CURRENT incarnation... The buff is TOTALLY NEEDLESS. :(( .

The could add hp buff to wind rider from brute strength upgrade, it would be logical lorewise, mb 25 or 50 hp buff would be enough

Grubby is such a good speaker he could be a cult leader!

What about making Wand of Negation single-target instead of an AoE as another option for a change? Like Shaman purge but without the purge slow.

For wand of negation, what about requiring this item to be researched. When the research is complete, then you can buy it. Seems like it would address your main concern rather beautifully

I think with Witch Doctors they need to make Healing Wards their Level 1 or 2 Spell and make Stasis Ward their Level 3 Spell.

You could give an initial cooldown of 120seconds (in the Tomb) to wand of negation so you cannot buy it instantly at t2, but rather at 6minutes

I have not played this game in 12 years. I will not play it in the future. I watched the whole video.

Hello Grubbs, im making my own updates, mostly for myself and my play against insane computer, and NE vs UD is really tough. How specifically would you buff Hyppo riders? any suggestions? I so far buffed dryads by increasing their attack by 3, huntresses changing their armor from armorless to great armor (value remained the same), mountain giants to deal splash damage, but increased their food to 8. I changed keeper of grove, his abilities to Frost nova ( its nature nova, different animation, same stats), entangle (stays same), brilliance aura (nature version, stats are the same) and tranq (No change). An when it comes to models, i changed complete visage to skeletons and creepy mushrooms, Keeper is giant mushroom wizard for example :D Im 3d sculptor in my job, so i take it as art, and fun personal project im doing for 20 years.

I can see how POTM will be my new favorite champ to play :P

Does it mean POTM is technically the highest ranged hero damage output with lvl3 searing and trueshot? Seems close to frost wyrms/chimmeras and like a ranged blademaster without the armour.

is it playside studios taking over and doing work?

Getting dispel early means also you are spending early gold (more valuable) for a consumable item to negate low level/amount of spells early. Aka more useful later for higher level hex/roots or more slow dispelling. If you pay early for it, but dont use it until later, you could argue that thhats 'wasted' gold and couldve invested it for something else

I always thought that armor gave +5% damage reduction (1 armor unit has 5% damage reduction am I right), and thought that with the spirit of SC1 attack upgrades were ~5% damage increase (or rather 5.8% or whatever you needed to make math out properly), for the attack and armor upgrades counteracting each other. Now I know that attack upgrades increase the number of damage dice attacker rolls (if they have larger die, the bonus is bigger), but armor is like 10% or something?

Grubby are you going to make an oppinion about blizzard cancelling blizzcon this year?

Mana Shield could easily be 2/4/6 and still not be a problem. Probably needs an additional function to be viable. Perhaps increased mana regeneration? Not only would the extra mana in and of itself be a reason to pick it, but it'd have good synergy with the existing function of the ability.

How about having a slaughterhouse requirement for wand of negation in Tier 2? Will take some time after Tier 2, so would be up near 6 mins, will be something the players need to build in most cases anyway, and will be unique in the sense if Undead players lose their slaughterhouse, they would not be able to buy the Wand of Negation.

Feels interesting that grubby and Malcolm guite are becoming my favourite youtubers. Wc3 player and a poet. You never know where you end up on youtube

Have I missed Grub's ptr games or did he never get to it? I wanted to see him try 3 second pollys but now they are already getting nerfed

They've got some stew stewing in the kitchen for sure.

If Soul Burn worked on mechanical units it would make firelord a nice hero against mass tanks. What ya'll think?

Do you think having most units available at T2 is good? But having the cost higher. And once you get T3 those units that previously need T3 will get a cost reduction. Example knight available T2 but cost 300/200 gold wood. Then T3 future knights cost 200/100. Air units are different story because they fly and hard to balance especially in 4v4.

I im so happy that they adding new patch

44:30 -- I think G is misinterpreting the "Well spring regeneration mana bonus" change... It's NOT that WellSpring now increases MAXIMUM mana of wells to 400 instead of 425... It's that *UPON COMPLETION OF THE UPGRADE RESEARCH* , they *GAIN 100 mana **_isntead of 125_** ....* That's how *I interpret it, at least...* ... Still might be _totally wrong_ ... :P .

50:45 that's from DotA 2

uuu yes item tier list plzz

Did they fire the guy who was supposed to proof read the patch notes or something?

regarding Mana Shield reduction cost, I don't think it's cheap if it doesn't have any activation cost. like you said in prior videos, skills that require your unit to get hit before it becomes effective is very easy to counter, it's very different in nature with Immolation and Demon Hunter barely have other mana draining skills other than Immolation. Mana Shield makes room for more defensive micro but I still don't think it would change much of people's decision to pick forked lightning or frost arrows over it as much

Grubby is the type of guy who doesn't know what PTR stands for but knows the word Superintendent

Ackchyually a lvl 3 blademaster without items and books (full natty) gots the same dps increase from a +15 gloves of haste as a lvl 3 (full natty) tc. After that, the tc get bigger dps increase (both percentage wise and nominal). With +20 gloves, TC gets bigger dps increase at lvl 3 already. (not counting for critical strikes or endurance aura) Although the gloves gives bigger bonus to BM because of the base attack cooldown for BM is better, it also gives less increase for BM as BM already has high agi and higher agi gain, and agi AS and item AS increase additively, so additional AS with the gloves is smaller increase for an already high AS hero than for TC. TC also have higher damage increase per level, so with every level he already gets closer dps wise to blademaster, and gloves becoming better on him. (at lvl 10 TC has marginally higher dps than BM not counting critical strikes and Endurance aura)

Wand of negation summon damage does not need engine changes. It can be done in the WC3 World Editor, there is literally a setting for it. Although I would think it is the main idea of the wand to dispel summons not spells. I suggest keeping the wand it is a great idea to have another dispel. I am not sure it is too strong. It is very expensive 1 charge at 75 gold. CD on the wand usage is necessary though I agree. And the replenishment time of the wand in the shop is high probably too. I don't know. If it is too early to get a wand at tier 2 you can give it the prerequisite of building the Temple of the Damned or a Slaughterhouse. But I'm not sure it is necessary. I'm sure they will just revert the wand completely from the shop because they are not brave enough to embrace changes. Why balance if you can revert? :/

Grubby, just wanted to say there was more suspense in your last ptr video when you read the PTR for the first time live with us 😊 this isn’t criticism though thank you for the video !

Moon wells existed at 1.25 for the longest time. They buffed wells just as they started nerfing DH and KotG. Wells also seem to gate the viability of Tavern heroes as well since elves play them more often. As a result, this makes elves have slightly worse heroes that are compensated for by wells existing which bump them into a viable state. I'm no pro, but I enjoy balance discussing these types of topics.

Grubby, a question for you. Why Headhunters are 2 food supply while riflemen and fiends are 3?

Its odd to me that the balance of Shadow Hunter and POTM Ultimate abilities ensure that they will never be used ever. One stun completely counters them they are passed on most of the time. Either you allow them to use a invul potion and I guess that makes them to strong or you dont allow them to invul and the spell is completely passed on.

You missed the 20% buff to searing arrow. It now went from +30 to +40 to +48

If the enemy undead or orc don't make air units then aren't gyros useless? How are they staples? Surely a counter unit albeit a great one. Knights I'd also argue are not staple units, I guess they still do ok vs heroes making them always somewhat useful, hmm

I can't find these notes online anywhere wtf.

They should make anti-magic shell give resistant skin and either delete wand of dispel or make it single target only, but unnerf charges

If the knights get a molten sword upgrade, will they call it soldering blades?

Undead - doesn’t the nerubian tower change make spirit towers obsolete?

I always thought that necromancers and their skeletons should be part of the core of UD's army, or at least a little bit more present/viable. They're pretty situational and usually only works when you caught your opponents off guard. UD will always build Slaughterhouse for Obsidian Statues, which only makes it more difficult to invest in another build (Temple of the Damned), for a strategy that will most likely not be worth the investiment. My idea of "fixing" this would be to try and change Obsidian Statues from Slaughterhouse to Temple of Damned (it never made much sense to me that Statues/Destroyers are a product of the Slaughterhouse, they're basically spellcasters, magic beings. And make an buyable upgrade in the Temple like, say: "Magic Resilience - Decreases the damage suffered from dispel abilities by 40%." Make it costly, but make it a option, nevertheless. I don't know, maybe they're just in the right position and are too hard to balance to not reach a OP state. Great video as always, Grubby, keep up the great work.

Noob question why does Grubby play with the Old graphics?

Doesn't gloves of haste benefit heroes with higher BCD more? And the apparent DPS difference comes only from base damage/stats difference of heroes? So the BCD/1+IAS formula would be: Hero 1: BCD = 1 1+IAS = 1.2 (only gloves of haste, ignoring agi etc) AS = 1/1.2 = 0.83 (0.17s faster attack than without gloves) Hero 2: BCD = 2 (worse BCD) 1+IAS=1.2 (only gloves of haste, ignoring agi etc) AS = 2/1.2 = 1.66 (0.33 faster attack than without gloves) So for heroes with lower BCD it gives more attack speed, but the DPS difference might come from better base damage and agi bonuses for BM/DH.