[spatula_ninja]

Preamble – no suggestions here, skip if u want
I (as well as other people) have noticed a decline in the amount of people playing on our server, among the myriad of reasons, I believe that it is mainly because of racial imbalance. Most of the races are very powerful when they get to higher levels, allowing for the easy raping of new players on the server, while I admit, it is fun (at least at first) to get lots of kills, it does get boring and wrote, not to mention the new players are very discouraged by the fact that they die so quick and effortlessly. So I decided to copy and past from the post by bombcode about that the stats of races/shopmenu items and then comment in italics, I also abridged many of the ability stats for the sake of brevity.
I am in no way complaining or whining about the current races, for the most part, they are fine, but when not fighting other high level races, they become very powerful, which ruins the mod for new users and, while fighting an army of bots with 525 health is entertaining, after you’ve done it a few times it becomes bland. Also, to further encourage new players, I think that good players (you know who you are) should restrict their weapons, yes, it is fun to run around killing people to get nice stats, it’s not too thrilling for other players, and you can have just as much fun with less powerful guns. I’ve played on servers that slay you if u are raping (happened to me once when I didn’t read the admins warning), I just stopped using m4 and used scout, and voila!, other team won a few rounds, I still had fun scouting, they had fun winning, everybody wins, when talking about team balance the wins mean literally nothing, its all about kills and kdr, if somebody has a high kdr and a lot of kills, they should change their race to a less powerful one and/or try different tactics and/or use less powerful weapons, showing restraint is an afterthought when your winning but, just try and keep kdr around 2-3 for fairness if at all possible. Once again, I’m not complaining/whining, I don’t have too much of an issue with people slaughtering the other team, even if its me, I just think its in the best interest of the server if you restrained yourself.
Below is a rundown of races and what I think about them in terms of balance towards mainly new players, after that is an evaluation of shopmenu items and at the end is a small list of improvements that didn’t fit in anywhere else. My views below are based on my experience from many wc3 servers, and my favorite two servers, my all time favorite was the first one I played on and got me hooked on the mod, unfortunately, after taking a break from CSS for 3 months (back when I played WoW) it was no longer in favorites (it rarely stayed in there for some reason) and I had forgotten the name, I looked but never found it again. My 2nd favorite was Goblin Army CSS server, the only one they had, but they took it down a few days ago, I don’t really know why, looked through forums and it seemed liked the admin wanted to focus on other games (they are a community similar to NinjaServe).

Undead Scourge
Overall a pretty balanced race, vamp would be better off stealing a higher percentage (40%) but lowering chance on hit (30%) and also relieving the hp cap for it, the COH will balance out and every round you health resets so unless you rape the entire team with scout headshots that all vamp (in which case your hp probably wouldn’t matter) then it has low exploit potential. Levitation and Unholy Aura compliment each other very nicely, allowing you first dibs on abstract camping spots letting you get the drop (sometimes literally) on your enemies, closing the gap means even if you die you still may be able to finish them off with Suicide Bomber. Speaking of which, it seems to be rather awkward in its implementation, here are my thoughts: First off, when you die it should be a good chance (70%) but not guaranteed, second, damage should be enough to kill somebody after 1 knife (55+), I would recommend nade radius at about 100 damage max (literally on top of your victim) and maybe 10-20 damage at the edge of range, self activation should double range (and thus, double damage at closer ranges so that it fades out at same rate as death triggered). The manual detonation should also return 0 xp for kills to help balance kamikaze xp whores, also making it more tactical, ”do you sacrifice yourself to kill other team knowing that you get no xp in return but also increasing your teams chance to win?” Adds an element of teamwork and race rolls that helps define the mod.

• Vampiric Aura: Steal a Percentage Life Based on Damage Dealt to Enemy
  • 10%-30%, 100% chance
• Unholy Aura: Makes You Run Faster
  • 8%-21%
• Levitation: Makes You Jump Higher (Low Gravity)
  • 80%-40% normal gravity
• Ultimate - Suicide Bomber: Explode Dealing Damage to Enemies Nearby (250 radius, same as the green rings)

**NOTE: Deals 400 Radius Damage if Activated Voluntarily. 200 Radius Damage if Activated on Death
Human Alliance
I’m not really sure how to approach this, but humans are way over-powered. Invisibility is first up, as of now, its good, but depending on the intended use of humans, it could change. If humans are to be stealthy campers, I would recommend around 60% invisibility in exchange for 100% invisibility after attacking (shooting/nadeing/knifing), on one server I played on, this was how they did it, the only problem was that you only became visible after hitting somebody, which lead to super scouts who could snipe at long ranges safely knowing they would only be visible when they hit somebody in the head. The cooldown for becoming visible should be about 3-5 seconds, and to further balance, keeping normal invisibility while moving would further promote this races roll as defensive camper, but, if that’s not the intended use of humans, then the current set up is almost perfect. Devotion aura is fine, rather hard to have imbalance there. Bash is also in good condition, I would lower chance to 20-25% because at the current rate a level 10 human has, for all intensive purposes, mini-roots, minus the ultimate blocking counters. And that leaves us with, ah yes, teleport. By far the most broken ability of all races, it allows the user to teleport instantly anywhere (on the ground) changing humans for super campers (old mod) to super rushers (new mod), the only chance to spot a human teleport is to be looking at the start or end location where a column of blue light appears for a few seconds foreshadowing your impending doom. Teleport absolutely, 100%, needs to blind the teleported! As it is, teleport has the ability to rape just about anybody other than somebody expecting it, i.e., you teleport to the same place for 3 rounds in a row so the next time they wait for you and/or they are “seasoned” player. Adding a line to teleport would also be nice but not needed if the column of light stays for the same amount of time that they are blind, which would vary depending on distance teleported (99% certain this can be done using before/after cords of player), also, imposing a max distance might help a bit with teleport rushes to bombsites which can be done by terrorists at just about every bombsite. The abuse of teleport is on the list of abilities scaring away new players because it is very discouraging to get raped like that every round, I don’t know how it feels too much because I leveled my human with everybody else, but when new players joined the server, It’s as if your playing against bots, simply because using teleport is sooooooooo easy and allows for even easier kills (even at very close ranges), its also an endgame to long range duel because you just wait for them to go behind cover, then you teleport next to them and spray. Yes, I know you can buy shopmenu items and there are races (Warden) that can block teleport, but, this post isn’t about race vs. race balance (though it’s a component), its about race vs. newbie balance, which is arguable the #1 issue stopping new players from getting hooked on the server that can be changed with minimal effort.

• Invisibility: Makes You Transparent
  • 21.5%-47%
• Devotion Aura: Increases You Max HP
  • 15-45 hp
• Bash: Chance to Freeze Your Enemies For 0.75 Second
  • 11%-33%
• Ultimate - Teleport: Instantly Teleports You to Where You're Looking.

[spatula_ninja]

Orcish Horde
Dare I say it, I do, Orcs are, *pause* perfect. Critical Strike is fine, at its worst is a critical headshot, but, after all, you did get a headshot, and headshots are the cornerstone of skill and/or spray and prey, which Critical Strike compliments rather well. Critical Grenade is also fine, the red streak further warns victims, I think the damage should be increase because they don’t seem to be used much anymore (effectively). Equipment Reincarnation is also good, would also be nice to check current equipment vs. “saved” equipment so you don’t lose silencers. Chain Lightning is good, a little underpowered, but that just means less people abusing it. My favorite variation of this was on a wc3 server no long up (clan issues). How it worked was when you activated it, for the next 10 seconds every time you hit somebody you had a 35% chance to do the same amount of damage to the closest person within a certain radius (I forget the number, but it was small). This complimented the rest of the Orc’s abilities very well because they were all geared for rushing and this helped weed out packs of campers. It used blue lines between players and flashed their screen blue when they were hit by the lighting, same color scheme for lines as human teleport, but of course, smaller. These changes would be nice, but they are more of an OCD/personal preferences than issues, in fact, they are 100% personal preference, nothing has to be done.

• Critical Strike: Chance to Deal Double Damage
  • 15%-25%
• Critical Grenade: Grenades Always Deal Extra Damage
  • 1-2x damage
• Equipment Reincarnation: Chance to Regenerate You Last Weapons, With Full Kevlar Vest
  • 33%-100%
• Ultimate - Chain Lightning: Deals Damage to the Person You Are Aiming At, Also Less Damage to Those Around Them.

**NOTE: 50 damage for initial hit, 25 to anyone else.
Night Elf
On a skill by skill basis, much worse than humans, they win my coveted “WC3 Whore” award. Evasion is probably the only thing that works just right for elves because the % chance is mostly based on the specific server so the numbers have to be tweaked based on game play for that particular server. Thorns, however, is not. First off, just about nothing in wc3 should be 100% guaranteed, thorns, should be about 50% chance on hit to activate because returning 100 damage should be dam near impossible to do, when in fact, at the moment, its not. 3-4 hits with an ak can do around 90 damage, a headshot does around 110, without armor, it does even more, meaning that you can kill somebody and/or severely damage them using thorns. Who would have thought that not buying armor lets you do more damage? Trueshot Aura should be like vamp, more damage, but a chance on it. Entangle[ing] Roots should be nerfed to AOE radius. When you think about the ability, it wouldn’t be a single target long range sniping move, it would make more sense as roots “growing” out of players location and rooting nearby enemies for a few seconds, elves are very versatile but making them super snipers is very discouraging to new players, they’re running along minding their own business, then they stop moving, then they get headshot by a scout, very cheap, very easy, very bad. Yes, there are ways to block roots, but, first off, they are not used very often, and second off, they are 11 times out of 10, not known by new players.

• Evasion: Chance to Completely Avoid a Damaging Hit.
  • 10%-25%
• Thorns Aura: Reflects a Percentage of Damage Taken
  • 10%-20%
• TrueShot Aura: Always Deals a Percentage of Extra Damage
  • 10%-30%
• Ultimate - Entangle Roots: Freezes Enemy for 5 seconds

Blood Mage
Almost perfect, an alternative to current phoenix would be 30% chance at start of round to revive 1 person per level of skill, not including the blood mage, another alternative, is a 10-30 % chance whenever somebody dies to respawn them so long as you are still alive. Banish is a little overpowered because it destroys the targets accuracy as well as disorients them, I think it should be a mere 15% chance because of smg abuse, but I would rather revamp the ability completely. Siphon mana is good, but it’s superfluous because the original Blood Mage ultimate is not longer used. Originally, siphon mana would give you extra money, which you would use in combo with your ultimate to get health back, but now, you just light people on fire, which I think should be used instead of banish (COH to light somebody on fire for 2-6 seconds), or better yet, in combination with banish, making it a 15% chance to slap somebody around on fire for 1-3 seconds (1-3 slaps, 5-15 fire damage), could be named “Banishing Flames”, “Flaming Banish(ment)”, “Flames of Banish(ment)”, or just “Banish” with “Banish you enemy to a fiery hell (or with a hellfire)” as the description.

• Phoenix: Chance to Revive the First Friend that Dies With 100 HP
  • 33%-100%

**NOTE: This Effect Stacks. Eg, If There are 3 Phoenix Active it will revive the first 3 people

• Banish: Chance to Slap Your Enemy Into the Air
  • 10%-20%
• Siphon Mana: Steals a Percentage of Your Enemies Cash When You Shoot Them
  • 5%-15%
• Ultimate - Flame Strike: Sets Your Victim on Fire For 10 Seconds

**NOTE: This affects armor first
Shadow Hunter
Another pretty balanced race. Healing Wave should be improved so that it surpasses rings, as with other shopmenu items, rings should be equal to level 2 not level 3 of the ability they imitate (although ankh of respawn has to because nobody wants to spend money for a chance to respawn equipment). I would suggest 2-6 hp per 2 seconds. Also, armor regen would be nice as well, have it heal same amount as health but only after health is full. Hex is good, I think it should disable dodge as well because its percent chance is low (and just about all ultimates because they are, for the most part, all offensive abilities). Serpent wards should have increased radius and do a little more damage but be limited to 1 minute life span to prevent warding up hostages (which is very cheap) or bombsites (though I haven’t seen that one done yet, it would be very effective at bombsite B on dust2). Voodoo is pretty good as well, increasing the time of it to 5 seconds would be nice but a warm-up should also be imposed, maybe 2-3 seconds, and it should make a power-up noise when the warm-up starts. Also, allowing knife damage to be dealt and received would be very nice, so if you hear somebody voodoo, u can take out your knife and rush, like a forced knife duel.

• Healing Wave: Heals You and Your Near by Teammates Every 2 Seconds
  • 1-5 hp
• Hex: Chance to Slow Your Victim and Disable Their Offensive Skills for 6 Seconds
  • 5%-15%
• Serpent Ward: Place a Vertical Ward That Deals Minor Damage to Enemies That Pass Through it. Also Flashes Your Screen to Let You Know.
  • 1-3 per round

**NOTE: Use the !ability command to place these.

• Ultimate - Big Bad Voodoo: Makes You Invincible for 3 Seconds, But You Cannot Hurt Anyone.

[spatula_ninja]

Warden
Yet again, more “balancedness.” Fan of Knives is good, possible improvement though, spawn with the enemy on their team, have “Your Are A Mole” flash on top of screen, then switch you to opposite team after spawn time is over, this would allow for true “moleage” and make it much harder to wtfpwn moles. Before they get a chance. Even if not implemented, “You Are About To Mole” should be flashed across TOP of screen, not in chat, its very discrete in chat and the point of moling is to surprise enemy, not yourself. Blink is fine as it is, pretty bland for an ability though. Shadow Strike is good, but, unfortunately, it continues if you respawn immediately after dieing, so it does have a chance to double kill another warden with vengeance or do damage to a phoenix respawn. Vengence should be optional, after you die, you should activate your ultimate to spawn, it should be done for you. This allows for a much more tactical approach especially if you do not wish to respawn at all.

• Fan of Knives: Chance of Spawning With the Enemy, Disguised as One.
  • 10%-20%
• Blink: Blocks Enemy Ultimates Used Against You, or Near You (depending on the ultimate)
  • 1-3 charges per round

**NOTE: You get charges for this skill that get used as you block ultimates with them

• Shadow Strike: Chance to Deal Poison Damage to Your Victim
  • 10%-20%
• Ultimate - Vengeance: Respawn Once With 50 HP (Cannot be Blocked)

Crypt Lord
Like orcs, this race is *perfect*. Impale doesn’t do what name implies, but it does something, in addition to shaking screen I think the shot should also ignore their armor (as if you impaled them) and, chance should be 50% with knife (after a pointed stick, this is the best impaling device available to the average consumer). Spike Carapace is good as is, chance on hit would be better as well as less damage than thorns and more armor returned (maybe 3x?). Carrion Beetles, aka BUBBLES!!!, good balanced skill, would be cooler if beetles were used in animate, but BUBBLES!!! Are just as cool (just not as accurate). Locust swarm is a little over powered, I think it should do less damage but make the victim more susceptible to BUBBLES!!!

• Impale: Chance to Shake Your Victims Screen
  • 10%-20%
• Spiked Carapace: Reflects a Percentage of Damage You Take, and Gives You Twice That Much in Armor
  • 10%-20%
• Carrion Beetles: Chance to Deal 15-30 Extra Damage
  • 10%-20%
• Ultimate - Locust Swarm: Deals 35 Damage to a Random Enemy

Shop Menu 1

1. Ankh of Reincarnation - Regenerates Your Last Weapons, and Gives Full Kevlar Vest – although it imitates a lvl 3 ability, as stated above, paying for a chance to get your equipment back is a rip off, price should be $3000 because at $2000 it’s a steal (too much of a steal)
2. Boots of Speed - Increase Your Speed x1.17 – classic shopmenu item, works fine
3. Claws - Deals +6 Extra Damage on Every Hit – classic item, works just fine
4. Cloak of Shadows - Makes You 31.3% Transparent – another classic, kinda pointless though
5. Mask of Death - Gain 20% of Damage Dealt as HP – very nice in bot wars, also helps you survive gunfights, but should be chance on it, not guaranteed.
6. Necklace of Immunity - You Can Block 1 Ultimate Per Round – good as it is, maybe add a 45-55 second cool down and make it block infinite ultimates
7. Orb of Frost - 10% Chance to Slow Your Victim and Disable Their Offensive Skills for 6 Seconds – in and of itself fine, but when combined with a high level race, allows for easy rapage when it activates
8. Periapt of Health - Increases Your Max HP +30 – also good by itself, but gets hairy when combined with high level races
9. Tome of Experience - You Gain 100 XP – wayyyyyy over priced compared to amount of xp you get, unless you are so bad that neither you nor your team ever wins or ever gets a kill, in which case, I’m surprised you still play on the server, it should be in its own category so you can buy it without dropping items (which, if you have full cash, makes u lose money)

Shop Menu 2

1. Scroll of Respawning - You Respawn Once, With 100 HP * also very over priced, $5000-$6000 would be more appropriate
2. Mole Protectant - You Are Immune to all Mole Attacks – never actually bought this, so can’t really comment
3. Amulet of the Cat - No Footstep Sounds, Throws Accuracy Off, Type !cat to Turn On/Off *Note: You Cannot Plant or Defuse While it is Turned On! – I think that instead of blocking all sounds, just blocking gunshots would be nice, like a shopmenu silencer, I've had some issues with it as undead though because for some reason it would randomly turn off and I wouldn’t be able to turn it back on
4. Sock of the Feather - Low Gravity (0.60) – who said feathers don have socks?
5. Helm of Excellence - Immune to the First 5 Head Shots Each Round – very over powered, and, at the current price, only usable by somebody with money, meaning they are probably winning, which, in turn, means they win more. This is probably one of the biggest issues because it does ruin the game when a good player buys it, getting rid of this would help team balance greatly.
6. Flaming Gloves of Warmth - Regenerate Grenades Every 10 Seconds *NOTE: This Will Disable Critical Grenades – seems kinda pointless unless you loves your nades, in which case, go for it.
7. Ring of Regeneration - Regenerate You and Your Near-by Friends HP. 1HP/2sec Per Ring. Max 5 Rings. –should be reduced to 4 hp per second, 4 rings, $1200 each.
8. Chameleon - Disguise Yourself as an Enemy – like helm, helps imbalance teams, but it’s not used often so it’s not that bad.
9. Mole - Spawn With the Enemy Once, and Look Like One. – possibly worse than helm, can only be bought by a very rich player, who, would only have $1000 left for weapons, which means, they already have guns, which, in turn, means (99% of the time) that they are winning, so moleing would just make it easier to win, screwing with team balance, the only time I’ve used this was during 2v2 when I played as T and only bought dualies (I lost most of the time) but when I moled with the bomb most of the time CT wouldn’t see so I could plant it stealthily. When playing with so few people, it helped mix up the matches, but with normal teams, it’s more of an abuse issue. It doesn’t really need to be in shopmenu anyway, so taking it out would probably not offend any players.

I believe that it would be nice to have two (2) additional items in shopmenu, a ring of armor and bug spray. The ring of armor would give 120 armor, while the bug spray would grant immunity locust swarm and cut carrion beetle damage in ½. The ring of armor would cost around $2000 and the bug spray would cost around $3000.
Improvements

• Allow changerace from spec
  • OR allow it while alive and have it take effect upon start of next round
  • Both would also work but not be necessary because at most its one round playing as a race you do not like/want
• RTV!
  • Cmon, why get rid of rtv? Even if you don’t like people switching maps, at the very least, if enough people voted (1/2 server) it could cut time left on the map in half, that way bad maps would go faster.
• Speaking of faster maps, shorter map time
  • Shortening map times to 15 or 20 minutes for custom maps allows those that hate current map to stay on server and wait it out, because if your like me, you hate Kabul, so when it changes, you simply leave, allowing RTV with already shortened map time would at least give me a chance of seeing a good map sooner.

[CorrosionX]

Very VERY well typed ideas. I agree with most of them...but


Hmm where to start where to start...hmm...let me just start with obvious stuff...esp since my fav race is warden.

Warden its a great race...blink tho should not only block ultimates but block skills too..I think should autoblock skills in a really close radius...maybe 25 or even 10 distance with a chance if it would be too overpowering and increased distance....tho should block more ultimates...and be more like an ultimate..being able to block with a minor tweak...maybe 1-3 ult blocks then have to have a cool down or 1 ultimate for every idk...15-20 secs. Think would make it more of an appealing race and i believe it used to block skills...so im told...so its only fair to do it again. Should also be able to disable wards by walking through them at a cost of 1 ult block.

Warden mole...well the issue is it tells you the round you are going to mole you are going to mole, so basically no time to buy wep or get prepared...should tell you the round before you are going to mole next round so you can prepare. Like mole activating next round! Be prepared!. But ive already suggested this idea before...so what you are saying just never was implemented...for whatever reason.

Tweaks

And again, I already suggested the tweak of being able to choose your race whenever...and it being applied next round. Again, never was implemented. Just stupid have to be dead to change your race.

Something you didnt mention relateing to is again..what ive already suggested...buying items. Dropping an item in shop1 so you can buy tomes is just plain...wtf? Should be able to buy tomes whenever.

Shorter custom map times...is a really really good idea. You can always extend the map if the players want to stay on that map...so its a great idea.

Necklace of Immunity, I agree with that, should be a cool down..of maybe 30-45 secs. Most of these items were for the most part fine before the adding of the uses, but just some of them need to be tweaked.

Phoenix, should popup a menu asking you if you want to be spawned (for first player dead). And you have only like 5 secs to reply before it moves to next person. It should start with first player that died...but continue to next person and so on till someone spawns. I hate being respawned when I am not prepared or was saving my ankh for next round, and if I die, dont have a weapon next round. Should also notify players that pheonix is activated at begining of round to let them know ahead of time.

Answers

The reason why tomes is so much still is because you get xp from just about everything, so its really not needed. That was the reason that was given to me. Tho again...i already asked why...but I still think 7k is more reasonable.

We got rid of rtv because people would rtv after we just rtved to that map that THEY chose. To counter it...map time was decreased to I believe 45 minutes which is still probably too long...

We already have an armor shop item..was replaced by another one..believe it was amulet of cat. No one used it, hence why it was replaced.

Neckless already blocks ults...so really no need a blocker for locus..and for carrion beetles, its a skill... dmg shouldnt be lessed or blocked.

[Remedyz]

holy god you read all of that?

[CorrosionX]

Originally Posted by Remedyz

holy god you read all of that?

Unlike you rem, I am not lazy.

[Negative]

I thought the post(s) were very good as well. I think you contradicted yourself way too much though. You first started talking about making the mod more "noob friendly" and as you started describing adjustments in some of the latter races, you were really making them more powerful.

Lots to touch on...

Items:
- Tomes should be able to be bought separately at any time. I agree with this.
- Armor item would be ok, but I don't think it would get used much. There are better items for the amount of money you would be spending to get this. In this game, HP means more than Armor.
- Necklace should be able to recharge or after it's used it should be taken out of your "items list" so you can buy another one or any other item from shopmenu1.
- Helm is overpowered still. Obviously is was wayyyy worse before. Instead of making these headshots not count, do you think reducing the dmg of headshots by 50% or something would be better. That way you can still kill players by getting headshots. Just an alternative idea.
- Ankh should be increased just a tad. Agreed.
- Cloak should make you a bit more invisible for the price in my opinion.
- Claws should be upped just a tad. Maybe make it 8 damage or making it a percent increase to whatever damage is done. Example would be claws adds 5% damage. The more damage you do per hit, the more it adds. This would increase this items popularity in my opinion.
- Scroll respawns you, but doesn't give you weapons (if I remember correctly) so this really costs alot for the return you get.
- Amulet of Cat doesn't work 100% so I don't think we should use it. Sure it's a nice idea, but if it screws your accuracy I think it defeats some of the purpose this item has. It turns off sometimes because of jumping. Another reason I think this should just be removed until we get find a different way to code it.
- Chameleon changes your skin, but you still show up on radar as an enemy so I think this item is fine both in logic and in price.
- Bug Spray seems kinda like a pointless item. I don't think it would be used often enough.
- XP Item! I would much rather see an item that you keep until you die. It lets you gain an extra 20xp on kills or something like this. Unlike the tome, this item is key for players that have skill. This could use some discussion and tweaking though.

Misc:
- RTV wasn't taken out. All votes were taken out with the latest version of the admin plugin (ManiMod).
- Timelimit is currently at 25 minutes. Timelimits have never been above 35 minutes unless we have it on dust 24/7.
- Changerace can be activated in spec mode. The only difference is that you have to join a team so the mod can validate your SteamID. This is the same thing for all the commands. If you join a team and then go back to spec, it will let you change race and do all the other commands like normal. Changerace while alive would be a nice tweak, but I don't see it to be a necessity. Most people don't want to change races if they are winning. They want to change because they are losing or want to level a diff race.

Races:
Warden is a decent race, but it really kills your KD if you are that kind of player.
- Blink is a very nice skill because you don't have to concern yourself with getting overpowered by others' ultimates. A warden on a team that tries to help by blocking ults is a very effective tool if used properly. I don't like the idea of blocking skills with this. Maybe something like reducing the % on others' skills in half would be more appropriate.
- Vengeance would be much better if you could choose to activate it within a short amount of time. Say 5 seconds or so. I constantly get respawned and immediately killed. The only problem I see with enabling this is the ability to see where everyone is after you die. You'd be able to be a spec and basically ghost. There may be some ways to avoid this though, I'm not really sure.
- Shadow strike is ok in my books.
- Fan of Knives (mole) is... meh. Many times I'll get killed and I respawn. I'll spend my money to get stuff to win the round. Then I'll successfully get a mole the next round, but guess what.. I have no money. So I'm moling against an entire team with no mulah. Kinda of a crappy waste of skill points. I really don't know a better alternative to it though. Moling when the rest of the team spawn is bad though. You would show up as an enemy on radar and could be immediately killed. We had it like this before. I suppose you could possibly switch them to the other team, but this would probably screw up any chances of buying things. If you currently buy mole one round, you do get until next round before you mole so this was somewhat taking into consideration.

Crypt Lord
I think this race is very well coded. I think locust is a little high, but this is only because it can be used more than once. Everything else seems to work pretty well.


Currently writing more...

[Negative]

Undead
- Suicide Bomber damage still seems somewhat random. I know it's been looked at before and it's even be doubled in damage (200dmg on death & 400dmg on manual suicide), but it still seems to do such inconsistent values. Tactics got killed by a bot today. He was very close to it and the bot only took 20 damage. Considering that it should do 200 hundred at the closest possible range, this value still doesn't seem to work properly. Even if this is 100 towards armor and 100 towards HP, the end result doesn't match up. Just as a note, the way this works is already like a grenade. The further from the center you are, the less damage you take.

Not getting XP for kills done with this would make this a worthless ultimate. Who wants to sacrifice themselves for no gain? A team isn't going to necessary going to win cause you used this ultimate. If you want to say your are adding the element of teamwork, why do you think you rush into a mob of enemies and detonate yourself? You are trying to take out as many players as possible and what better way to promote this than by giving them XP and money for the all the kills?
- Vampfinally seems to be working like it used to. I think most others would agree with this as well.

Human
- Invisibility is decently balanced right now. Players can still see enemies (even at distance), but if you aren't looking for it then you wouldn't see them. Sure, this promotes this race to create campers, but the spots where people sit eventually get noted just like any other camping spot. I would like to see it where you invisibility changes depending on what you are doing. If you have knife out, you are less visible and if you are running you are more visible than standing still... that type of thought.
- Bash is either too high in % or the length you are bashed for should be reduced. It seriously is like a mini-root. If you get hit with it twice in a row, it's freaking harsh to kill a human while you are stuck in place.
- Devotion is good as is.
- Teleport has been changed lots of times. There never seems to be a happy medium with it. Most players can recognize where players are teleporting to even if there isn't a line showing it. The only time this isn't the case is with large open areas. The majority of maps aren't like this. They forced you into closer, more confined combat. We had the blind in place, maybe this changed... I'm not entirely sure. I think a distance limit would be helpful. Humans could adjust to this pretty easy, but I also see this causing alot of unhappy humans. Example: Teleport from roof on Piranesi to bombsite A. With distance limit, would you get dropped in mid air if it's too far?

Orc
I think orcs are much better now as well too. The orc nade used to be the cornerstone of this race or you might call it the overpowering point. I think reducing the damage on it from what it used to be was a good move.
- Chain lightning is good as it is. It's just not all that effective on 1v1 fights. It's better when fighting groups of players, just like the orc nade. These skills should be used at choke points / bottlenecks for maximum effectiveness. The skill is not underpower though.

Night Elf
I agree that this race takes the cake right now.
- Evasion is fair
- Thorns is just odd. I see this do odd values of damage too. I don't know if this factors in armor damage too or something, but the values don't seem to be consistent.
- TrueShot seems fair.
- Roots wouldn't be overpowering if it didn't screw your accuracy. The length is pretty excessive. If you can't kill someone sitting still within 5 seconds, then you need to practice your aim a bit more. ;P Three would be more appropriate. Even four seconds would be better.

Blood Mage
- Phoenix is a good team skill, but since you respawn with nothing it isn't as effective as it could be. Give them something to start with. Maybe a deagle or a low end smg. This should apply to Vengeance as well. The only way this skill works greatly is if you limit your items to buying an Ankh to get your weapons when you respawn. This doesn't let this race utilize other items though.
- Banish would be less overpowered if you didn't get slapped so much. I know there was coordinate ranges that the player could be slapped can be adjusted so you aren't getting flung so far. This particularly plays into hand when you get banished again while still in the air.

Shadow Hunter
- Healing wave would be neat if it regenerated armor as well. I don't think it's as important, but it could help.
- Hex should only disable offensive skills. I think disabling the offensive skills only brings other races down to the level of SH. If you were to disable defensive skills too, then Hex would really be considered an offensive skill. This isn't what kind of race it is.
- Wards have been discussed a bit already. I like the idea of having a time limit on them. 1 minute to 1 minute and 30 seconds seems solid. The question is, should they be removed if that player dies? They used to be timed and would stay there until the time ran out. Your approach for having it timed isn't valid though. You're saying you could just wait until a minute into the round before putting wards by hosties or on a bomb site?
- Voodoo could definitely be increased to 5 seconds. As for the power up, 2-3 seconds is really a long time in CS. Heck, you can get killed in less than one second. How is Voodoo going to provide any type of assistance by waiting 2-3 seconds before using it? Knife damage given and received is ok, but this would change how players go against a SH using voodoo. If you know they can take knife damage, you aren't going to waste your clip into them like you would now. That's the difference.


General Conclusions
This mod is not noob friendly. Never was and never will be. Making it noob friendly will really just destroy the point of the mod.

[Pointzero]

Yeah who read all of that?! omg way to much but wat i did read was pretty good nice typed