Vela seems to need some love
Hello all,
I am making this post to discuss my opinions and impressions of using Vela in this 3/6/2016 test weekend.
To be blunt, it sucked, hard. I had to switch to Grath half way through to get a playable game (which btw was a fun class). I don't want to sound like I am complaining, but I think you nerfed a little bit too hard on this class. So, here are my impressions and why I think i felt like I did.
Now, the reason I chose Vela to start is that I really like the hit and run, tactical glass cannon play style. I like harassing units in most RTS. I like to play a skill based game where positioning and angles and the 'juke and jive' determines success. Things like reapers, mutalisks, pheonix in SC2 are what I am talking about. Usually these classes will have some range or speed in order to enable this approach. Vela used to be this, at least it felt that way back in test weekend 1. I could kite, snipe, and generally maneuver my way to success.
In this weekend, playing Vela felt like a flimsy ball of useless. The problem I felt was mostly the speed, or lack there of. I checked the wiki and appearently Vela now has the slowest tier 1 units, and second slowest tier 2 (beating only the seige flowers). This makes my glass cannons basically target practice. On many occasions, I would move forward, try to pick off a unit, and then retreat. My opponent upon seeing me would then run me down and kill me. I couldn't really do anything about it as my units had the defensive power of wet tissue paper, and so standing to fight led to instant death. I tried to kite and shoot which might allow me to pick off a unit or two, but due to the slow speed I ultimately couldn't escape or do anything other than try to sacrifice my army to save my mercs (without much luck).
I don't feel as though range alone was enough to compensate for the slow speeds, and lack of health. It needs to go with something else. Take some examples:
Siege tanks/colossus: Range + powerful damage. Can kill opponents before they get close
Brood lords/gaurdians/tempest. Range + flying means they can use terrain to block access.
Shuttle+Reaver, or Mounted archery in other games have speed and range to shoot + scoot.
Stalkers also have range and speed advantage in early game.
Furthermore, all of these units can work in combo with blockers/shields like spider mines, zealots, zerglings etc. which punish you for running towards them. I.E. it is a bad idea to rush a tank with widow mines in the way, or try to attack broodlords and run straight into zerglings/roaches.
However Vela has no 'gaurd units' to punish people who run straight at her. There is no speed to get away. And the power might be enough to pick off some stragglers but in no way can actually gun down an advancing army (like a line of seige tanks or purifiers can).
The only thing I could really do well was stay next to the towers and use those for defense, which basically leashed my army to one small section of the map, and only until my opponent got the stun charm and rushed the tower. I couldn't fight for gems. I couldn't defend gems, I couldn't even take on simple titan camps.
I tried staying with my ally in the doubles camp (assuming he could provide cover) and that worked somewhat alright, but I would often fall behind, and wind up lagging a few seconds behind my ally as they had faster units. It made it really hard to move as a group and stay in position with his units in front and mine acting as extra damage/support. Furthermore, doing this made it pretty much impossible to pick off enemy units as I had an ally blocking me. This kept me from getting mowed down, but prevented me from doing the only thing my class can do well.
The problems with Vela also included incompatibility with any of the mercs that I tried. The key problem being is that all of the mercs have a shorter range than my units. So inevitably they work their way up to the front line. When my opponent then rushes me, my mercs are trapped between the enemy and my own slow moving units, thus almost guaranteeing that they die and that I can't build up a stronger army over time.
I tried holding the mercs back so that they don't go up to the front lines, but then they don't do anything as they aren't in range to attack. A chiller (my attempt to fix the speed problem) doesn't do any good if it is out of range. So I tried buffing units like Enhancers, but these felt largely usless as it didn't fix the core problem of being run down and killed every time I was more then a few seconds away from a tower. With all the merc buffs, I might have killed 3 terrapin troopers instead of 2, but ultimately I just lost my entire army and all my mercs to grath for the 4th time this game at the cost of only a few of his tier 1 units.
By comparison, grath worked well with the mercs. I could easily get any one I wanted as I had tier 1 units to act as blockers. I tried grath with healers/martyrs, and lots of other combinations and never felt as though my mercs were being put up for sacrifice or out of position and useless.
If your looking for suggested improvements. I would suggest you can bring the base speed back up. Make it more of a kiting based class.
Maybe you want to make it more of a long range glass cannon that needs to be protected. That's fine, maybe a bit more firepower? Something closer to what you have right now for the siege flowers. Or perhaps give the class some way to protect itself, like a sentry forcefield.
Maybe you want to make it a 'pusher' to get opponents out of position (like guardians/tempest attacking your flank and forcing you to retreat or die). Then maybe a bit more range, or the ability to use terrain better? (shoot through walls?).
I don't have a good solution, but I do know that I couldn't hold ground, take ground, advance, retreat, or use mercenaries with any real feeling of success. I was constantly pushed back, run down, and unable sustain a functional army as my units got picked off so easily.
I don't want to sound overly harsh. I liked the game, and had fun this weekend once I switched to Grath. I like the mercs better than the previous nuetral units and the game felt nice. Its just that Vela needs some love.