In 2004, Warcraft III’s chic strategy was to pair the Beastmaster with early-game Night Elf units.  Blizzard “fixed” the problem, reducing the Beastmaster’s strength by one point.  That is, twenty-five hit points and one point of damage.  Whether the patch stymied his effectiveness or players simply got better, the Beastmaster’s reign of terror was resigned to history.

Now consider the Orc Blademaster.  He can mix and match early-game item drops to increase his damage by as many as twenty to thirty points.  And unlike the Beastmaster, the Blademaster’s effectiveness is dictated by his attack damage.  Can you see where there may be a problem with this? Give credit to eSportsFrance for charting the conclusions I came to.

That’s right: In the last nineteen major international tournaments, Orcs have won fifteen.  In seven of those tournaments, Orcs fought each other to determine the winner.  What a way for Warcraft III’s competitive legacy to end.  It’s long dealt with accusations that the game is geared towards luck, items, and heroes.  And what did we end up with?  Players stacking the Blademaster with items and raining hell with Critical Strike, an ability that gives the Blademaster a fifteen percent chance for his attack to deal double, triple, or quadruple the damage.

So when’s Starcraft II coming out?

Credit to H4x for the link.  Anyone interested in the Warcraft III competitive scene owes it to themselves to read the article.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 27th, 2009 at 3:53 am and is filed under E-Sports, Gameplay, Online Play, Warcraft III. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.