Hi, i wanna open this topic as a summary of why i feel mordor has many drawbacks compared to the rest factions. I make a list of the balance topics mordor can bring:
- No early cavalry: Early game mordor doesnt have any deal for archer spam.
- Limited cavalry until very late game: Nazgul horses do well only mid game because if u buy them early they cost a lot and have no damage to harrash, on the other hand on late game they die too easy to strong archers. To solve this u can only go rhun horses that are hardly blocked (in case u go for that pp way) or get morgul spire. Both options are pretty bad cost-efficience and very late game things.
- Weak early: The idea of mordor is to get cheap early units that enable u to make the transitions, the problem is mordor cant resist well only with basic orcs and trolls vs many early armies. Units are all too slow and have very low damage, trolls dont do well enough at fights for the amount of money they cost.
- Very expensive early transitions: No transition but black uruks is viable in time or money:
- Nazguls: Its much harder to spend 1300 one time than to spend 500+500 in stables and a normal horse for a similar purpose, even more early.
- Harad archers: Its 600+750+650=2000 money and more than 2 minutes to get 1 archer. Considering men of khand is a unit with not a clear purpose and having the much much cheaper black uruks... it makes the rhun tech up even a worse option. Its a quite expensive building and lv 1 it doesnt even offer the rhun pikes
- Drummer trolls: This is a good unit but the units u would buff early game are not good enough vs many armies, even if buffed. Drummer troll works much better mid-late game with rhun support and stronger units.
- Hardly blocked late game: Most games you dont have enough time to get to see the very good units mordor has. Its more a question of time and how blocked they are rather than not having money for them. U have industry and a lot of money but by the time u get them u cant stand the opponent´s army attacks and u end up loosing.
- Bad heroes (Mouth and Gothmog are the only good heroes):
- Nazguls: It has barely no damage and its too expensive, its armour makes him horrible dismounted and it needs very expensive fort upgrades to resist late game.
- Shagrat: The powers he has are just too bad, weak and very specific buffs and he has no damage.
- Gorbag: Totally useless as he is right now.
- Mollock: Its a very good hero but too big to resist in battles late game. He has same armour as any other 3000 cost hero being 8 times bigger.
- Wk: He has an incredible debuff, but its the only good thing he offers until very high levels as vs most factions he becomes too bad if mounted. Also 1000 cost more than the other expensive faction leaders.
- Nothing but horribly late game barbed arrows archers works well vs heroes
Now I suggest possible solutions:
- No early cavalry: I would make nazgul cost 1000, i would remove some abilities and nerf their armour, besides i would add them a bit more damage vs buildings and a considerable dmg vs heroes to work better as hero killers. I would buff their armour dismounted as now they seem to be like Thrain in battles.
- Limited cavalry until very late game: I would add 1 more 1000 cost nazgul hero and put spire as a separate power from morgul upgrade. This way it would be 1500 to buff nazguls and 1500+2000 to get morgul vanguard (still quite expensive to buy them but now worth it to get them directly)
- Weak early: I would rework men of khand and make palace lv1 much cheaper (300-400 cost). I would make them fast, with a good attack stat and low armour (good armour only vs archers if nazguls remain 1300), also reduce their price to 400. Similar in behaviour to bfme2 corsairs.
- Very expensive early transitions & Hardly blocked late game: With the changes mentioned before this shouldnt such as big problem as he is now, still, I would make it faster the fort upgrades and a bit faster the buildings upgrades to avoid the problem of losing too much time upgrading. Also very important to make morgul orcs come from orcpitts so that fort dont assume too much functions (maybe orcpitts lv 2 or 3).
- Bad heroes:
- Nazguls: Read the solution to "No early cavalry"
- Shagrat: I would make him not so specific of black orcs only and change the first active ability.
- Gorbag: Big rework, i like him to be a fast hero of 500-700 cost. Low armour, big damage and 1 or 2 anti hero powers, no more.
- Wk: I would change the screech and morgul´s blade for more useful abilites and reduce its cost to 4000 or 4500 as he doesnt offer much more than other faction leaders.
- Nothing but horribly late game barbed arrows archers works well vs heroes: With faster khand, the gorbag i mentioned and nazguls with more hero dmg it wouldnt be a problem to deal with heroes.
I know its a long text, that not every problem has to be solved and obviously not in the way i said but i see 2 as the most important for balance and for me its a must to change them. One is the deficit on anti archer purpose and the other is how hard is to deal enemy heroes.
Thanks a lot for reading this and feel free to write whatever u consider.