[Balance] Turn Minions Into Glass Cannons

By Ke5trel on March 3, 2009 3:09:47 PM from

I've been out of play for 10 days but coming back I'm not seeing effective minion generals. There have been a few threads about why this is the case but essentially

- minions are not responsive enough - UI, movement speed, and AI prioritizing could all be buffed to help this

- minions can safely be ignored by an attacking opponent - damage scaling, minion passive buffs and debuffs, and health and damage tweaks could help this

The most elegant way to tweak minion mechanics would be to scale them as a percentage of the parent General's stats but they could also be implemented in the current upgrade system.

Either way, somethings I'd like to see on a Minion General Build -

1. Increase minion speed to 115% of their parent

2. Increase minion damage enough that enmasse they provide a significant threat very quickly. Right now Assassin burst-damage combos will remove a General from play before minions become dangerous. There are several ways to make minions more dangerous, but simply buffing their damage output 30-40% would be a start. Or make attack speed lower but increase damage much more so that a general can use minions to achieve burst-damage capability.

3. Lower minion health significantly. No one hits them right now anyway, but an Assassin should be able to 2-hit most minions. That way you can mitigate their much greater damage cap by killing them, as opposed to just ignoring them as in the current system.

What you end up with is a responsive swarm of glass cannons who keep their General relevant in the endgame and actually make minions viable as a build...

Thoughts? Comments?

+118 Karma | 12 Replies

Completely Agree actually.

Lower HP and More Damage.

Dont like seeing minions with 1k hp

i 100% agree, right now minions are useless against demigods, they should have high dmg and low hp so they can be a threat if left alone. That will generally make minions more useful

And they thing hp need to be 2x at this topic !!

from topic: "General minions are way way too wimpy. These minions should have at least 2X base as many HP as they currently have."

IMO best way to balance Generals is to:

-Make minions should not have almost zero collision, they must impede demigods to advance.

-Buff Minions to a level where the quantity equal to cap can actually be a threat to a demigod. Make them have passive awesome skills that protect his general: lifestealing for him, permaslow, ministun, armor/damage reduction...

-Nerf generals to have low hp, low DPS but better support/damage skills.

The point is: Minions should be your bread and butter DPS, like in any RTS...if by any chance enemy demigod manages to beat them (or leave them behind) then he would be able to try to kill the General. There makes no sense for Generals to be almost as good as Assassins on 1on1, but with minions (imba or crappy).

Glass canons ? They may be more effective, but don't forget some DG can wipe out nearly instantly all your minions. A ice torc, a QoT, a Regulus and other can in their own way negates a fair part of your firepower.

Health reduction should be gentle at best.

Minions shouldn't be the main dps source of generals, imho. They should be a tactitacl tools at least as useful as most active skills out there. (which they aren't)

I know how to fix this. Now i know i don't own the game but i follow the threads quite actively and will most likely buy the game when they come out. One things i've seen in other games is to make minions have a splash damage passive resistance. So torch bearers don't come along fire thier little ice spells kill your minions within 5 seconds and then you. I'd actually expect the generals to require GREAT micro similar to Supreme Commander just to use and make them more powerful than assassins. (just a little not too far) Make each unit individually controlable.

x2 general demigod health x1/2 speed x1/2 damage. Minions x3/4 health 75% splash resist x 1 3/4 damage up collision. This makes it so the minions are a threat but once killed the general demigod is slow so he doesn't jsut run away.

As Xavior says, give minions some mitigation to Area of Effect spells or at least make them responsive enough to escape those spells before they trigger. A mixture of both would be great.

You could also bump up minion hp regeneration 200% or so, so if they survive the first hit they will have full health again in under 60 seconds. That way a good General can hit-and-run or rotate out his wounded for increased staying power

Minions in this model need to be fragile to counter the increased damage, imo, otherwise the fundamental General mechanics we have (unlimited minions) will make Generals far too powerful. At the same time, you want to keep them from all dying against one spell. An Assassin should be able to pick off minions one by one quickly but should not be able to ignore them altogether.

I don't completely agree with the glass cannons. That leaves a more defensive demigod like Oak open. And if you can kill a minion in two hits it'll be faster than you can kill low level zerg. But minions are just like the zerg, only the have a cost.

If you ask me minions should take a percentile buff like you said. But they should also have their gold cost lowered or have generals get more money to pay for them. Even the level 2 and 3 minions are decent, but with the cost you're better off investing in the citadel. When level 2 priests cost much more than their unlimited zerg counterparts there's a problem.

I believe that minions around a general should be stronger. A buffing aurora would work wonderful for this effect, say uh + 50 base attack and 100 base armor. This would make minions a force to be dealt with around there general. I also think generals base attacks should be weaker than there minions this would make a general more of an RTS playstyle. I think that seige archers should do more damage to towers so they would have to be dealt with rather than ignored when seiging a base. This would increase the tacticalness of generals. I should just make my own generals thread.....

Although making the generals weaker might have been a good idea at first, at this point it isn't happening.

ok just to be clear - when I say minions I mean the uniques like Spirits and Yetis. I'm not really looking at minos, siege archers, or monks here.

I disagree with the thought to lower hits of Minions of any type. A Demigod can command his army to attack a foe, then run away while the Minions do their thing. Granted they won`t be supported by ambient buffs and auras at the time, but lowering their hits to make them glass cannons just means they`ll be more susceptible to special attacks, even with an area effect protection statistic given unto them. Lower their hits and I would demand a return of greater numbers as with previous antiquated Demigod builds.

I like the way they are in the newest beta. I think the single most important thing that could be done is to improve their pathfinding and slightly improve their auto-attack ranges/A.I. . I`d say do this first and then see how things play out. Structures for sure are very vulnerable to a decent army.

Quoting Ke5trel,

reply 10

ok just to be clear - when I say minions I mean the uniques like Spirits and Yetis. I'm not really looking at minos, siege archers, or monks here.

I am talking about all controllable minions in general. The only minions that are really a tactical threat currently are Spirits and I think my suggestions might make all minions something to worry about.

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[Balance] Turn Minions Into Glass Cannons