Changes

Fixing the holes

Frozen Throne’s biggest accomplishment is in fixing the races. The races in Reign of Chaos, particularly Undead and Orcs, had unbelievable holes in their arsenal. All of these problems have been addressed with new units, and a whole new class of unit has been added as well.

The traditional Orc problems were early-game slowness and no real dispel magic ability. The slow starts Orcs got off to were tied to the expensive and ungainly Grunts, which were costly to lose in combat with creeps. Unlike other races, Orcs had no real way of healing early on, and they had weak options for summoned units taking the brunt of the damage. With the Shadow Hunter hero, Orcs now have an early-game heal. The new Tauren Spirit Walker also gives them a potent dispel, easily as powerful as the Wand of Negation. The Undead’s weak melee hero situation has been addressed with the Crypt Lord, and they’ve gained a good healing unit in the Obsidian Statue.

The new class of units are best classified as anti-magic. Every race except the Orcs have been blessed with such a unit. For the most part, they have bonuses in dealing damage against spell casters and can steal/dispel/disrupt buffs in some sort of fashion.

Phoenix arises

Come on Vashj you useless...

Horned Illidan

Other new units

Humans and Orcs received new flying units that are dedicated to disrupting ground defenses and destroying other air units. Of these, the Human unit is more effective in a ground-support role but the Bat Rider is a lot more dangerous in the air, thanks to its Unstable Concoction which makes it act like a super-powerful Zerg scourge.

One of the more highly-touted features are the neutral heroes who can be hired. Generally, the Pit Lord hero is the one to get, and although the Pandaren Brewmaster is incredibly underpowered, he’s too sympathetic to leave behind.

In general the five mercenary heroes aren’t as powerful as the regular ones, but they do imbalance the game. Blizzard’s goal of focusing more on the heroes is noble, but all-too-often, it becomes a race to see who can get the heroes first. The heroes-first focus also contributes to the One Huge Army syndrome that’s been plaguing WarCraft III from the start.

My name is a tribute to El Chick

good manner ^.-

Zug zug