Let's Balance Every Unit in Halo Wars 

Do you agree? Let me know! Special thanks to ScrubbaNubNub for help with the thumbnail! Thanks to all the channel members! Chief76 Goggins Sal ASicoCareBear Ronald Miller

my idea proposal: buff all of my units nerf all of my enemy's units

Gauss Warthogs were quite literally the best vehicle in the actual fps Halo games. I find it both hilarious and fitting that they're disproportionately good in Halo Wars as well. Its very on-brand for them.

Elephants should be able to upgrade the defense turrets just like base turrets. Would be a great buff

Crazy how even 14 years later, people still play Halo wars competitively.

For the vulture, I would increase the range of both auto cannons and missiles by 20%. These things should act like true gunships and sit back and support ground units.

The boost cooldown for the banshee actually affects their ability to fire. They can boost infinitely but they won't be able to attack during that short cooldown.

Fun fact: The Gausshog Run it's something the UNSC should've done during the war in the lore. A single Gauss cannon packs a punch equal to a Scorpion tank in the canon, so a fleet of them would cut throught a Covie convoy like butter.

Wraiths feel massively underpowered in late game. A single un-upgraded scorpion shouldn't be able to beat several fully upgraded wraiths, let alone one.

I think the only change the Honor Guard need is an off-hand plasma rifle. When out of reach of an enemy or when garrisoned, the Honor Guard can use a plasma rifle in their left hand to deal damage with. It would likely be comparable to an Elite from the grunt squad, and it'd be more used to chase faster enemies with or to protect neutral buildings occupied by the Honor Guard.

Lmfao putting in Starcraft 1 theme while explaining is a nice touch from the RTS standpoint. Love it.

5:00 this is precisely why the jackrabbit was created in halo wars 2. They wanted a fast flanker unit and a scout unit, but having a unit that can transition directly from scout to flanker/Calvary was insanely hard to balance. The problem wasn’t a stat problem, but a mechanical one. The jackrabbit was designed to fix this. It gets detection to spot invisible units so it’s always useful even after you know enemy buildings and gets regen because you rarely want to stop and heal a scout unit due to cost, and a damaged scout can survive long enough to give info. Warthog gets boost to vs infantry combat and its ram ability doesn’t rely on janky physics engine as before so it can more reliably be used by mass hogs against multiple units. Great for flanking.

Warthogs are already great against air with the Gauss Cannon. I’d argue keep Gauss for Forge only Torque joints should still cost 800 but increase speed even more. Their melee should do a bit more DMG as well Wraith Scorch could use a bigger AOE Locust also needs to be able to shoot while moving Vampire Drain glitch? They just have insane range. Get visibly on a target then get the Vampire to drain em. Could use a nerf tho while fixing the Vampire taking its sweet time to drain a target that’s a few units close to it. Similar issues the sui-grunts have I’ll add more as the vid goes

I think the UNSC tank should get its canister shell upgrade replaced with infantry handholds, turning them into mobile lite bunkers, Press Y to unload. The current tank is too much of a hard counter to hunters. This upgrade would give players a reason to field mixed forces and solve the slow infantry problem without them outrunning vehicles. Plus I want to see a 3 spartan griz fully loaded with ODSTs(assuming teammates can board ally tanks).

I usually build a field armoury. I usually capture a base early and just fill it with all resource buildings and one armoury, because the upgrades can be useful, especially reserves and turrets to deny early forces, since you can train units faster to push back attackers and the turrets are a no brainer

Your videos got me back into playing Halo Wars again lol

Here are a few things I would do to balance and make things more interesting. Elephant - Add anti-air missile launchers. Delete "lockdown" ability. Have units being deployed while on the move. Cyclops - Just make it Titanfall. Have a drop ability as a t3 upgrade. Increase movement of speed by default. No upgrade. Scorpion - Decrease speed by 10%. Decrease damage by 10%. Cobra - Increase turret rotation speed by 20%. Vulture - Have a t4 upgrade that increases HP and damage by 40%. Call it Turkey Vulture, lol. Or Buzzard. Locust - Decrease damage by 15%, but allow them to attack while on the move. Arbiter - Decrease HP and damage by 20%, but increase movement of speed by 30%. Make him more like blademaster from warcraft3.

My suggestions: change damage type of grissly tank. Currently it changes to deal more to infantry but led vs other tanks and actually loses to normal tanks. I’d give it a unique damage type that gives it advantage against infantry without suffering its current penalty vs normal tanks, so then it acts like the beast it should.

If the Cyclops literally functioned like the HW2 Cyclops, the unit would suddenly become useful.

I'd rework flamethrowers into snipers like the rebels have. Much easier to balance jackals vs flamers this way, and no more dealing with flamer AI and movement, and their uselessness in towers. I'd buff elephants HP by 2 or 3 times. They are made of paper when they should be way more impossible to kill, and end up being an asset like they are portrayed in halo 3. The cyclops feels like it shoulda been the mantis instead. Some light ranged guns on them to fend off against light air, and if you let them get close to vehicles and bases youll pay the price as they rip it apart. Countered hard by cobras hunters and micro'd scorps and wraiths

the cooldown for banshees boost is actually a cooldown for their weapons, it's meant to make it so they can't just appear at a base and start blasting immediately so they cant fire while their boost is cooling down. making that longer would definitely make it so while you can get your banshees anywhere you want your opponent still has more time to react or adjust

Also, cyclops need to be able to house Spartans. Another great buff

A good final upgrade for cyclops would be some kind of armament to use at range/on air units. There were megabloks models of them with various different weapons attached to one arm

Replace flamers with snipers. Jackals get long range anti infantry capability, why not unsc?

As a total fucking noob, I never knew the Grizzly was weaker. Gonna cry tonight

Haven't started the video yet, but I'm super excited for this one! I greatly enjoyed watching your massive map and units tier lists, and I'm sure this one will be a similar experience. Brb, gonna go make some popcorn! Thanks for the vid, Turnip!

Interesting watch, your channel is a hidden gem! Love to see some halo wars 1 content.

Lol, literally last night while playing Definitive Edition with friends, I was talking about how I'd change things. Got my friends to get Halo Wars since it's like 7 AUD on Steam atm.

I think the cyclops should get a gun like in halo wars 2

I genuinely love halo wars as a game, I constantly play it off an on (as well as 2, but I like 1 more). I'd love to play some games and find ways to try and improve!

I would have given the odsts a different weapon it never really made much sense that they have shotguns, but they're taking down banshees more effectively than wolverines. I guess it's like a custom super heavy flak shotgun but still, It would be cool if they had Battle rifles like they did in trailer.

5:40 idea i just got for the warthog: somehow make them like turrets where you can change the gun to fit what you will fight. That are they shouldve just had all of them in by default. Standard warthog for infantry (though they technically are anti-air in the lore) guass hog for anti-vehicle, and rocket hog for anti-air. Obviously they shouldn't be too powerful in any of those, but just enough that having say 5 guasshogs would be enough for 1 scorpion, but 2 Scorpions could be too much for them, especially with upgrades.

I think It could be kinda cool if elephant trained units get a veterancy star to begin with, and possibly more depending on the elephants veterancy.

as someone who loves spamming units as a memestrat hornets are incredible but i gotta agree with you on this one bit of extra health would make them viable without having 20 of them

Pro tip chieftan/forge 3v3 cyclops strategy. The chieftan does a temple first base rush, and the forge pelicans five cyclops to help him, as long as they stay together pretty unstoppable. forge just keeps the pelicans going, strip a covy base really fast. Viable cyclops strat, that isnt turtling. Also take away the canny glitch, and 20% nerf on attack vs hunters, and Hunters would be so overpowered. I mean tanks would stand no chance against hunters, only flamers or air would work. I think people would just stop building tanks at that point, as they would be about as useless as wraiths are now.

I wish you could equip snipers for the unsc

I am going to have to disagree with some of the points on the need to keep up with air units. I know what you are trying to say, but the major advantage of an air unit is that things are not supposed to keep up. I think the issue that you bring up (like with the grunts) is ultimately a core mechanic issue. There is no real way to hold ground on Halo Wars, so battles are more like naval battles in that you hit and move on to the next point or fall back. There is no real way to leave some units in a part of the map that is a choking point, nor have them hold back a force slightly larger than they are. Checkout game play from Wargame: Red Dragon. Ground based air defense is even slower, but due to the game structure means that air craft kind of have to fly in a bit and be exposed.

Great video 🎉

Late to the party, but I'm curious what you think about the halo wars 2 changes? Specifically, putting the warthog in the vehicle depot and making the main base unit into the marines.

What are your thoughts on the leader overhaul mod overall? I personally love the work they've done flushing out the game but also am not to keen on what seems like them moving towards making the game more like halo wars 2

If you assign offensive protectors to a control group before attaching them to a unit, you can still select the protectors using that control group key and give them orders. They won't automatically attack something unless their host unit is firing at that target (though their weapon has limited range, so it'll simmer out long before it reaches the target if they're not close to it), but you can command the protectors to fly around independently and manually right-click command them to attack things with absolutely no dependence on the host unit. You could do the same with repair or shield protectors, though they'd only be useful in a scouting capacity. And of course, being assigned to a host, each of said protectors are not viable targets for enemy anti-aircraft fire.

What I hate about balance talk is specific percentage based changes because people get caught up and arguing as if numbers can't be changed. I find it stops people from talking about if the change concept is good.

Great Video. I would say as im the Marineking. Good idea with the adrenaline Upgrade, but I would say at least to a tech 1 upgrade still so you have the ability to have the same speed like a chief and make it to 125. So you click it dont even think about it. Or you make the marines costs 75 and let the other things the same. Good Video anyway.

the fact that grizzly's are bad is actual mind boggling, lol. they look so fucking cool, it's a legit tragedy.

I respect your views and opinions I feel Ensemble were maybe hesitant to not have the warthog represented as strongly as possible They were vocal about getting down the feel and sounds of the halo warthog so it makes sense they wanted it to be a popular unit Halo Wars is mad underrated, with the whole definitive edition and backwards compat with the XSX/S it seems to have had a second life all these years later I'm really interested in the idea of a Halo Wars 3 as a wrap up to this series paving the way for something newer

Are you able to play online with mods on the steam version? You should try to make a balance mod with these suggestions and play with people on stream with it if that is possible.

I think adding a slow to hunters attack instead of speed boost will be cool

For the protectors, the glitch is mainly pc but maybe possible on xbox. What you do is you, with default bindings, you select any protector and hold shift and pick 1-0 and it'll move as if it wasn't linked to an unit but still is linked.

i cominly build my field armoey as soon as i have a base slot, although thats traded off for no health increase and you gotta keep an eye on them

I agree with restating the build for cyclops but id have it so the health and dmg stay the same but instead of the repair kit being the first upgrade it'd be replaced with an anti air upgrade so it has more purpose to defence firing one missle at a time from its left arm

One of my biggest frustrations is how stupid pathing is around objects. If they could sort that out so for example vultures could actually fly straight over bases and ground units could move around eachother you may not need movement speed changes. I'm glad you talked about arbiter rage too because his shit is so bugged sometimes. Same with chieftain it feels like 50/50 chance for his gravity hammer to pull a tank into himself and bug out his auto attack from swinging.

I've been working on a rebalancing mod for Halo Wars off and on with a friend for a few years now, and here's some of the interesting things I ran found/decisions we made: Flamethrowers we allowed to occupy the space that the Cyclops sort of occupies in terms of offense, allowing them to be moderately good at building killing, and changed the Fire damage type to allow extra damage to buildings. Grizzly Tanks' canister shells do SmallArms damage, where Scorpions' canister shells do Explosive damage, ultimately meaning that Grizzlies just have worse canister shells. Gremlins, we made them do significantly less damage on the field, making their presence emphasize their stun ability, additionally making them less capable of handling buildings. Cobras we added movement speed and a faster turn radius on the railguns, allowing them to properly function as anti vehicle both while mobile and while locked down. We introduced the idea of "Hero" units to the UNSC, allowing in particular Elephants to exist outside of the population (up to 3) and gave them functional base properties, allowing all of one's players based to be destroyed and still remain in the game as long as they have an Elephant. Vultures were made slower and given considerable buff to health and damage. Cyclopses were remarkably not changed much, though their repair is much more drastic. They are still quite effective as building killers, though they rely considerably on the Pelican drop leader power in order to do so. Honor guards were buffed considerably to change them into very effective anti-infantry units, and are especially good at killing "hero" infantry, such as the Prophet, Spartans, and so on - this also allows the Prophet to try to prepare for a covenant leader rush. Our solution to the Suicide Grunt pathing bug was to lean them quite hard into the building killer side, allowing them to inflict some respectable AOE damage to buildings if they blow up on the side buildings. Brutes are mostly unchanged, as more things that handle infantry well are circulating regularly, though they inflicting lesser damage against buildings, vehicles, and aircraft. Ghosts and Choppers were reworked considerably, ghosts were made very fast, less durable, and given further range, making them effective poking scouts. Choppers were given effectiveness against leader units like the Arbiter and a small AOE to its autocannons, which functionally made them better against infantry - they are a sort of cheaper Wraith with more speed. Each scout unit was also made 1 population. Locust's health was moved almost entirely to its shielding, and we also allowed Locusts to be able to climb over terrain like Scarabs. Wraiths were buffed to make them fall in line a bit more with Scorpions, adjusted to account for their population difference (as Scorpions can be 1/10th of the UNSC's base population, the Wraith takes up relatively less space in the Covenant population) Banshee damage against buildings was nerfed considerably, allowing them to retain damage against vehicles. I believe their health was slightly reduced as well - the boost idea you had I think was a really good idea, I might look at using that one. Some units were changed to require more than one Vampire to stasis them, making the decision of stasis being a matter of isolating targets (like Vultures) rather than a free "freeze their air force" button. We are currently in talks about their damage against infantry and belief that that should be nerfed. Engineers had some of their health changed to shielding, though that's about it. Grunts were slightly adjusted to make them more effective against air. Jackals' damage type was adjusted to be much more focused on handling infantry, making them less capable of damaging vehicles or aircraft - their beam rifle upgrade gives them quite a bit more range, as well, though they retain vanilla accuracy, sometimes missing their shots. Hunters were adjusted to be a little less durable against deflection/dodge things but given some health to make them consistent on how much damage they take, while also making things like Infantry better at handling them. Scarabs were given a buff to health and damage, but slowed down and made vulnerable to stunning effects like the EMP of Gremlins. Variant Scarabs were also added for each Covenant leader. Arbiter was made into an anti-infantry unit whose rage buffs allies in a larger radius (once that upgrade is obtained). Even the Arbiter rage was changed to focus on damaging infantry - changing the rage into a decision of if you wish to be able to micro your units or not. The Chieftain was adjusted to be durable more than anything, being one of the most effective rushers in the game, but his damage was ticked back a bit, making him rely on his hot dropped units for his rush rather than allowing him to sweep up on his own. Prophet of Regret was adjusted to allow more control over his beam, letting it move a bit faster and made it a bit cheaper, letting it be his sort of "long range" option for handling units out of his reach. Sentinels and Super Sentinels were given some love as well, making them generally better all around, but specifically also making the sentinels specifically good at handling flood units. Protectors were also given some much needed attention, and we're currently discussing allowing the rebalanced protectors on maps where sentinel building is available. We also introduced a handful of new units as well, and made a mostly-functional flood leader as well, though the AI can't seem to play it yet.

ODSTs could be a trainable unit in the command menu, that contribute to unit cap ahead of time. That way you'd have to 'plan' around using them ahead of time and work with fewer units ahead if you want to drop a bunch.

Came for the halo, stayed for the Brood War music quietly in the background.

Ghost is still way too weak, only good against a baby prophet (and this strat is suoer risky) ghost should get 5% more dps and health, als well they should be able to ram from the beginning

Cyclops should have an upgrade that gives them a shoulder mounted turret or cannon. Honor Guards should have a Plasma Cannon that they use when garrisoned and maybe even when attacking air.

I would boost the Choppers' ram ability by 20% and make it have 10% more health. Otherwise, I would leave its hit points as they are. Basically I would make it a melee vehicle.

Honestly only time I use Marines instead of flamethrower mid to early game is if I have the ODST upgrade

Personally i would buff the marines with a sniper rifle unit (making them anti-infantry), like instead of getting new blood, you get a sniper soldier (like those of the rebel snipers you find in certain multiplayer maps). That way they would have a better response against Jackals or Flamethrowers and they wouldn't get fodderized by anti-infantry units (making them more viable).

I always build field armory’s for at least the second base if not the first

Nobody going to mention that belcher during his vampire breakdown😅😂

I would have the Elephant become more lore appropriate. Rather then the buffs you mentioned, I would actually allow an Elephant to be garrisoned by a marine/odst unit and when garrissoned it's turrets (not the upgraded lockdown turret) does 50% more damage and the marine/odst squad is 50% more durable. I would also fix the glitch of Grunt squads (Brute variant) having the brute shots occassionly miss buildings/garrisoned units.

I've never played against other players in Halo Wars, just AI, but I couldn't help but agree with most of the points here. A few things do come to mind though. A) Should the turret rotation speed of the Cobras be increased? In the footage you showed, a ghost was literally able to drive circles around it, I feel like that shouldn't be the case. I'm not saying their rotation speed should be as high as a Power Turret Tank, but maybe a 10-15% increase would be enough? B) if I remember correctly, in your unit tier list video, you mentioned an exploit that allows you to use an Engineer to replenish the amount of suicide grunts in 1 squad. Since this would essentially make one squad of them essentially immortal, then maybe this is another change worth considering. C) Adding chapters to your videos, in this video's case, a chapter for each individual unit, would make it much easier to navigate. TLDR; Please add chapters to videos. Fix Engineer Suicide Grunt exploit. Potentially increase Cobra turret rotation speed. Thank you for your time

Not really a buff or nerf but we should be able to choose the weapon the Spartan gets. Like the neural implant should be the first upgrade then be able to have the individual Spartans able to choose among SMG, minigun, rockets, and laser

I wonder if there's a way to mod all these buffs and nerfs into the game to see how a 'balanced' Halo Wars 1 experience plays out.

Scarab being a super unit late - late mid game it should be powerful so id suggest allow it to build grunt squads and such

I had a few ideas for a new drone queen leader for halo wars 2. I made a post on Reddit about it.

i think that the engineer should be able to Heal more then one ally unit and provide shields for infantry units so they have more use along with what u said along with providing shields for unshielded leaders as well, because no one uses them other then the purpose the healing units, also they do bring shields to infantry units in all the other games.

Instead of moving ghosts into the citadel what are your thoughts of moving the Warthog into the vehicle depot? Would make both sides have to build a building to use them as scouts and might make infantry more important early.

Imagine if you could stack 3 spartans on one warthog. Holy smokes that warthog would practically be invisible.

Overall jackels have been slammed with a 15 percent speed nerf since many infantry they need to counter are now running at a 20 percent amp versus their 5 percent bonus. I should clarify that i agree with most of the video the speed scaling was just something i realized and found kind of funny

The scarabs movement is really glitchy, needs to be fixed, many issues with climbing mountains and getting stuck on units

elephant buff would be pretty bad because if you get two elephants you can overwhelm enemies with waves and waves of marines,hell bringers, and spartans

ODST Drop balance could be... Cant drop at a location that the other team has "line of sight". Or cant drop in the general vicinity as the previous drop. General idea with this would be trying to get them to walk to the fight.

Ignoring the canister shells, does the Grizzly outperform the Scorpion in general combat?

What about balancing every calldown/power? How would you nerf Anders' vicious cryo bombs?

I’m confused, is this just an idea or are you planning on making a mod that has this balancing?

Should make a mod that implements these balance changes, and adjust it as needed

Also buff the Scarab by removing the map wide notification that your enemy is building a Scarab

the wolverine and cobra start out as anti vehicle and anti air respectively, but they both transition into building killers with their final upgrade. its says so specifically in the upgrade. the were meant to be like that. so i definitely dont agree with that one. but a lot of these other changes would be amazing.

Honestly, id go a different route for Cyclopses. Id give them two upgrades to add an arm-mounted MG (first upgrade, light anti-infantry) and missile pod (second upgrade, anti-air), so they'd be similar to the mantis in Halo 4 and 5. It'd give them more utility without sacrificing their building damage or melee capability

My buff to the vultures would be increase their range, health and damage output by 20%, and make their anti air missiles into little flying Wolverines, maybe capable of being upgraded. Also make it that they can't be killed by Cryo Bombs, just inmobilized

Hunters, despite their name, are generally defensive units. Whenever they appear in other halo games its always when we attack a position held by the covenant. I dont think there is a single instance where the player gets attacked by hunters outside of firefight.

This reminds me of the time I was playing me and two bots vs my brother and two bots and I was about to lose my resources base and I had no troops and I made two wraiths and a scarab. I destroyed every remaining base with them and never lost a single one

Actually i think ive got a good buff for the elephant. You should be able to garishon your army that you trained in there. Ao that you. Can send over a single elephant and suddenly explode a bunch of marines/odsts flamethrowers and spartans at your enemys base.

I think Hunters should get vision and Range buff to deal with vehicles since they're suppose to heavy infantry.

Give the cyclops some sort of projectile weapon, maybe a stun beam or a kamikaze attack.

The brute has a glitch too

For Honor Guards, i think its known that they have kiting issues or just flat out wont attack what they are chasing when they are in range of melee. Why not give them the elite plasma rifle for thier side arm so that they can at least do SOMETHING of damage when they arent in reach of a target, like they primarily rush towards the target while firing and then when they get close they start swinging. This would also help with the fact they are sitting ducks garrasoning structures and cant do anything besides get shot at.

Great vid.. agree with all of these changes, id like to add my own also. How about ALL units get a defense buff when defending a base, lets say 20% and it increases/decreases depending how close they are (possibly have to lock down the base to initiate?). Also i want to switch forge and anders leader powers.. makes so much more sense given the rock/paper/scissors template of the game. Plus this would mean anders actually has to make air defense instead of just freezing all the vampires etc. Forge would be far more VIABLE ;) if he had cryo bomb and anders can take out infantry with the carpet bomb. Just makes sense….? Right??

Lore wise the Hog is a recon unit. The gun is supposed to be for self defense, but with being a .50 caliber rotary gun it is extremely good against infantry and light air targets, howevrr none of the games really translate this fact

1. Cyclopes base stats +10% hp and damage, and comes with healing and 2x speed. For upgrades faster healing cost 500 and stronger arms cost 800. First upgrade speed up healing, and second upgrade enhances combat capabilities. 2. Vultures. +20% more hp, +25% more range. +25% more speed. This is the UNCA super unit, and it’s going to feel like it now. 3. Elephant +40% more health. It’s suppose to be tanky. 4. Flamethrowers switch to snipers. 5. Cobra +20% more speed 6. Locusts +40% more hp and 25% faster.

Are there any community accepted fan patches for this game? With how even today Command and Conquer to this day still gets fan patches I can see Halo Wars easily getting fan patches.

Buffing the Forerunner units would make attacking neutral Forerunners a bit harder, but Prophet's "Ancestral Perversion" upgrade pops out 2 Attack Protectors on him without costing supply regardless of Forerunner Factory hooks. Some of the other changes ca be a bit worrisome.

You know making just about all of these changes take about 1-2 hours to mod. Just saying its very easy to do if the community agreed to use it.

Nah spartans last upgrade should obviously be a spartain laser chaingun

Wish they put a little more love to HW1. Give it mod support or workshop on steam.

Vultures do not need a damage buff. They need a fixed healing rate. Movement speed and manufacture changes are good ideas though

True question is how do we buff Shrek after almost a year of him playing w us

I think the elephant should have a mongoose unit