Why is the Drake Burner so powerful

[The_Gnat]

I noticed that the Drake Burner (a level 1 ranged unit) has 42 hp. That is shockingly high for a ranged unit and while looking into it i realized that all the Drake Burner's stats are all over powered. It has a high price, which compensates for its excessive power but i am wondering why the burner was made like this?

If you briefly check the stats you will see that he has higher HP, Melee and Ranged then every other teams archers...

However, it does cost 33% higher than the majority of the other teams archers. Basically buying the Drake Burner is like buying a lvl 1.5 unit, it has the price of 1.5 units and the hitpoints and strength of 1 and a half units. It seems strange to me... also i am wondering why a unit which acts like 1.5 units does not have a higher XP. Perhaps this was done for balancing, but to have a ranged unit which has as much life as some lvl 2 units just seems strange...

[Elder2]

Because bad defenses and vulnerability to pierce.

[The_Gnat]

Because bad defenses and vulnerability to pierce.

Good point, i had not considered that. But the Burner could have been put to 16 gold price and had slightly worse attacks and would have been just as balanced as it is now .

[Elder2]

But that wouldnt really fit as well into drakes faction theme xD

Also it wouldnt really be just as well balanced, it is not that easy, it would be weaker but cost less but would be weaker.

[Poison]

Almost all the drakes have high hp but bad defenses, they compensate for this with mobility, the burner is the least mobile unit of drakes (along with the clasher who is not flying and gets penalty to forest but he doesn't have pierce vulnerability and resists blade and impact more than the others) so he cannot even escape easily. A fighter will definitely survive more. Also him being strong not only fits thematically, but allows players to counter thunderers strongly (note that in this situation, 2 thunderers cripple a burner even with this hp - and with quick + intelligent [I call this combo the fodder traits] he's dead - and it's very likely that they will hit; on flat almost certain) and if he was cheaper (btw 16g sounds really cheap even for a nerfed burner), one could semi-spam them (with the best melee counter helping) and against undead for example this could be devastating.

[The_Gnat]

@ Poison - thank you for the explanation, that makes sense. Yes in comparison the elvish Archer with less life and melee has a far superior defences and good resistance and fast movement... So it makes sense that he has such high hp.

[wtf_is_this]

Actually the best explanation is that units are not balanced against other units, but factions in the default era are balanced to be as good as other factions. Thats why certain archer might be better than other archers while keeping the balance factions-wise .

[name]

I would even go a bit further and give the drake burner the slight boost of increasing its pierce resistance from -20% to -10% so that it would be a bit more useful against loyalist spearmen given its gold cost. To make that particular match up just a bit more dynamic.

Though some other units like the elvish archer might need a slight boost to compensate for this.

[Elder2]

? It already has -10%

[name]

Sorry, I meant:

Upgrade the drake burner pierce resistance from -10% to 0%.

[enclave]

Sorry for my 50 cents..
In my opinion all default factions are very well balanced.. Anyone who wants to change something just possibly not played the game enough to understand the reason behind it.. It was like this for years and years.. People can always make custom era or modification to try to promote their version of "balance", so if majority of people would feel like the drake burner is OP they could just play that era or modification, these days the problem just doesn't exist (the truth is that everyone who tried just ended up stopping their project, because it's not only a hard work but also they never got even tiny bit of support from other players for a simple reason - new players have no much clue on what is going on and they want to change different units, so they just don't share the idea of "people who are trying to balance things" while most experienced players just know that there is either nothing wrong with any units or there is no certainty about what exactly should be changed and in what proportion to achieve that "golden balance". In my opinion even RNG creates much much much more imbalance than drakes hitpoints or for example their resistance to cold.
You don't have to listen to me, all you have to do is look top50 ladder and ask them what they think, ElderofZion has already spoken as one of them and message is clear to me... Thanks for reading.

[name]

while most experienced players just know that there is either nothing wrong with any units or there is no certainty about what exactly should be changed and in what proportion to achieve that "golden balance".

Actually, I wonder if this is thoroughly true or if experienced players just do not feel there is an easy way to get their ideas for balance changes committed, whenever and wherever they reached a consensus on them. I remember Velensk mentioned something to this effect and it might just be that there is no longer anyone in charge of multiplayer balance anymore to approach with experience-driven feedback. (Though I do agree any further useful balance changes at this point would likely be tweaks.)

You don't have to listen to me, all you have to do is look top50 ladder and ask them what they think, ElderofZion has already spoken as one of them

I for one would really like to hear what each of them has to say about anything that might be improved with the multiplayer balance (in general I mean, not just the one drake burner unit). If there is nothing left to improve, that would also be interesting to hear from those with the best available experience.

[Pentarctagon]

while most experienced players just know that there is either nothing wrong with any units or there is no certainty about what exactly should be changed and in what proportion to achieve that "golden balance".

Actually, I wonder if this is thoroughly true or if experienced players just do not feel there is an easy way to get their ideas for balance changes committed, whenever and wherever they reached a consensus on them. I remember Velensk mentioned something to this effect and it might just be that there is no longer anyone in charge of multiplayer balance anymore to approach with experience-driven feedback. (Though I do agree any further useful balance changes at this point would likely be tweaks.)

If you're going to approach anyone with balance suggestions, it'd be zookeeper, but it is true that there's really no single person or group that's in charge of balancing mainline anymore. Right now the best way to propose any mainline balancing changes for the Default+Khalifate factions is probably to post them in Ideas, along with any relevant replays and-or previous discussions(for example, the Tentacle of the Deep thread).

[Elder2]

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=44782&start=60

[Krogen]

I think that the Default Era is not at all well-balanced, and has a lot of problems. The Drake Burner is not one of them.