Ballistae, Catapults, and Meat Wagons

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RSOG
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Ballistae, Catapults, and Meat Wagons

#1 Post by RSOG »

First to note: I'm not 100% sure of this. It's something that I've started to notice only recently, so it might simply be the way my games have gone for the past week. That said, I encourage people to actually go out and conduct some measurable experiments before reciting what you think you know.

Also note - this is not a "QQ I lost to siege" thread. Recognizing siege as an advantage has won me a few games that when comparing the skill of the respective sides, I feel I should have lost.

I am of the opinion that siege weapons are simply better than other spawn towers, in terms of "likelihood that you'll win the game if you build this rather than something else."

Part of the advantage here is siege damage - bases have fortified armor, so naturally, towers will fall faster to siege weapons than to other spawnies if they're both at the base for the same amount of time. Needless to say, this means that if siege weapons can push well enough to put your troops at the enemy base for the same portion of time as other spawn towers, siege is already at an advantage. So are archers.

But for siege, it's even more than that. In my observations (which may have confirmation bias), siege weapons seem to push better than other towers as well, likely due to their splash damage, long range, and no real disadvantage except that they can't hit air.

In spawnie-to-spawnie combat, units tend to bunch up, which makes the splash damage from siege weapons a terrific advantage. Add to this their long range that allows them to not crowd out other units except in very large numbers in very small spaces (like bridges or Gloomreap), and you've got a recipe for win.

Their supposed counter - air, does not appear to actually counter them. Siege tends to be at the back of the push, and the air will first agro on the units in the front. The siege then wipes out whatever ground targets the air is with, and the siege's non-elite ranged suport wipes out the air. When I have to counter siege, I use Melee instead due to their high hit points to better slow them down and give heroes time to arrive on the lane. Constant hero attention seems to be the only counter to siege that doesn't require more tower cores than the siege itself did - except for countering siege with siege which costs the same amount.

Let me say that again:
Constant hero attention seems to be the only efficient counter to siege.

The emergent strategy from this observation is to put siege in every lane, thereby forcing the opposition to divide their resources - and unless they have more cores than you, the best they can do is put siege in every lane, too. If they have fewer cores or have already built things that aren't siege, or have already focused on a single lane, they'll be forced to divide their heroes, which leaves them open to a focused push.

If you haven't already done so, try a few games building siege in every lane instead of whatever you usually do with tower cores (if you're orcs, build infernal cannons first, then annihilans, since you don't have any "true" siege). Ignore counters entirely. See if this makes the game easier. If you haven't at least tried this, don't post saying that I don't know what I'm talking about, because I recognize that this contradicts dogma.

I also encourage someone who can host to try a more controlled experiment. Play a 1v1 game. One person builds one air tower, the other person builds one siege tower in the same lane. Heroes stay out of that lane. See which side takes it. Then repeat, but replace Air with each other kind of spawn tower in sequence, and see if the counters actually hold. After this, try a game where the better player builds everything but siege and the worse player builds only siege, let your heroes be involved, and see if this changes the odds of victory.

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Re: Ballistae, Catapults, and Meat Wagons

#2 Post by CryptLord1234 »

I'm kinda curious to see how a Siege / elite archer build comes up outta this. They both do siege damage to towers, and elite archers do counter air units. . .Hrm. Well, first test these things out, then on we go from there.
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Re: Ballistae, Catapults, and Meat Wagons

#3 Post by Dekar »

Siege + Archers is like the oldest combo of all.

Few siege per lane should be harder to counter than massive siege stacking on a single lane.
Because the enemy should counter with air ideally and when you have enough air vs siege towers the air will have no problem with regular archers and then go on raping the ground units.

Air is basically siege with splash traded for damage immunity against quite a lot stuff. I post that because I think it sounds intelligent.
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Re: Ballistae, Catapults, and Meat Wagons

#4 Post by Lunargent »

On Stormwail at least, 4 out of 5 lanes, you're shooting uphill into a base which is a decent chance-to-miss. Top lane, rock lane, inn lane and bottom all have forward bases with height advantages over attacking spawns, and given their range, the siege weapons will almost always be shooting with that penalty.

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Re: Ballistae, Catapults, and Meat Wagons

#5 Post by RSOG »

Dekar wrote:Siege + Archers is like the oldest combo of all.

Few siege per lane should be harder to counter than massive siege stacking on a single lane.
Because the enemy should counter with air ideally and when you have enough air vs siege towers the air will have no problem with regular archers and then go on raping the ground units.

Air is basically siege with splash traded for damage immunity against quite a lot stuff. I post that because I think it sounds intelligent.
I actually think Siege + Melee is a better bet. Melee tanks the air units (yeah, they've got heavy armor, but there's still a lot of health to go through) and causes the enemy melee to bunch up and become easy fodder for the siege.

But I'm not advocating that either. I'm advocating Siege + More Siege. Frankly, I can't recall ever seeing it beat by anything except constant hero intervention.

I'd like to see some tests done for Siege vs. Air at various amounts of spawn towers, but I honestly don't think that the siege loses in the long run. Air gets ripped apart by towers, and then the siege rolls on through.
Lunargent wrote:On Stormwail at least, 4 out of 5 lanes, you're shooting uphill into a base which is a decent chance-to-miss. Top lane, rock lane, inn lane and bottom all have forward bases with height advantages over attacking spawns, and given their range, the siege weapons will almost always be shooting with that penalty.
I hadn't considered that. Still, everything except melee will have that disadvantage, and in the inn and rock lane, that disadvantage doesn't come into play until the very end - where the towers are creating a bigger disadvantage than the terrain is.

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Re: Ballistae, Catapults, and Meat Wagons

#6 Post by Kalrithus »

Fel orc's infernal cannons counter siege quite well

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