Big changes for the Hussite Wagon! (August patch AoE2)

hey guys Spirit of the law here a few days ago  there was a new patch preview dropped where   players can have a look and play around with the  changes coming in the August 2023 patch there are   a number of miscellaneous tweaks like the Franks  losing a bit of their Castle discount in the mid   game but by far the most significant overhaul  is coming for the Bohemians hussite wagon and   that's what we're going to focus on for this  video they're getting five direct stat changes   along with three indirect changes and altogether  it's not immediately obvious how this will impact   the unit or even if it's an overall Nerf or buff  so that's what we'll be diving into now just to   give a bit of context I think it's worth bringing  up what the hussite wagon is supposed to represent   in the game historically these were War wagons  used by the hussites in Bohemia as makeshift   fortifications on the battlefield where Defenders  would sit in the wagons and use crossbows or early   gunpowder weapons to fire at the enemy while  staying in full cover the obvious Advantage   is these can be set up almost anywhere fairly  quickly and had quite a bit of success against   heavy Cavalry in particular helping the hussites  wins and defensive battles when they were greatly   outnumbered a bit of that is represented by the  passive defense they give units behind them in   game absorbing some of the incoming damage and  protecting units behind them while being able   to fire their own pot shots back at the enemy now  of course in practice enemy units tend to fire at   whatever is closest to them by default so it's  kind of a rare mechanic to see but it's a cute   idea and you can see what they're getting at now  obviously this is a computer game and the primary   goal is to make it fun and not be a historical  simulator but we'll keep this very defensive   style and inspiration in mind as we look at the  changes now as for the upcoming patch first off   their HP is being reduced by 20 or about 10  percent immediately this might imply they're   trying to Nerf the unit though let's hold off on  conclusions for now another indirect change is to   an armor class called heavy Siege which is carried  by hussite wagons and ballista elephants currently   Siege monitors have an extra 75 attack against  this group though it's going to be reduced to   50 in the patch practically this change doesn't  make a big difference especially with hussite   wagons already losing a bit of HP and I expect  this is intended more for the ballista elephant   and making Siege less overwhelming against those  a more surprising change for me is that villagers   are getting plus six bonus damage against heavy  Siege as well this means they go from doing two   damage per attack against Elite wagons to 8  damage personally I have no idea what this is   about but a group of villagers is now a legitimate  threat to an isolated wagon and in fact a pair of   Spanish villagers with Supremacy can beat an elite  outside wagon without losing a unit whether this   is intended to have hussite wagons feel more like  Rams or not I'm not sure but even in the late game   villagers are going to be pretty good against  them now now for the larger overhaul though we   get to their attack first the number of secondary  projectiles is increasing from three to five and   importantly will now all fire at the same time  paired with this the attack of the main cannibal   projectile is dropping significantly but the  secondary projectiles are doubling in damage   turning into triple what they were after the elite  while all of the secondary projectiles are getting   plus three against buildings and ramps all of  this is notable for a few reasons first they're   losing a bit of their gunpowder feel as the main  projectile no longer overpowers High Pierce Army   units like before but the secondary projectiles  are clearly beefed up and is very reminiscent   of recent changes to the organ gun following a  similar idea another critical Factor not mentioned   here or maybe is unintended is this means they  fire significantly faster for whatever reason   units with multiple projectiles in ab2 don't start  their reload timer until the last shot is fired so   the new hussite wagons are reloading immediately  rather than waiting for an extended animation and   firing sequence to finish this is so significant  they now fire 34%faster over time which again   isn't stated anywhere explicitly but we have to  keep in mind another side variable here is the   main projectile has 90% accuracy and the secondary  ones have 75% so shifting damage from the main one   to secondary Ones Will theoretically lead to more  damage being lost to missus unless enemy units   are tightly packed together clearly there's a lot  going on here and all of this has a big impact on   their micro previously there was a well-known bug  where if you moved a hussite wagon after firing   its main projectile but before it fired all three  of its minor ones then the next time you fire it   would complete its firing sequence of just the  minor projectiles left over this meant trying to   micro the unit too much would often lead to losing  out on the main projectile which did the vast   majority of the damage to me this was a cool if  unintended mechanic that fit the historical idea   of defensive wagons meant to stand in fire rather  than hit and run at this point now though there's   no reason not to hit and run to your heart's  content as it won't lead to any misfirings since   all the shots are happening at once so far between  the faster firing increased number of secondary   projectiles and easier micro altogether these  sound like Buffs though then we have the lower   HP so which is it are they better or worse well  to find out let's head to the scenario editor   here we'll start off in Castle age with the  old hussite Wagon on the left and the August   patch has a wagon on the right against a low  pure summer Target here with a crossbow as a   stand-in the two are almost indistinguishable  problems start to arise though as we match up   against units with increasing Pierce armor where  the old hussite wagon took 18 seconds to bring   down a knight the new hussite wagon takes 26 as  all of the secondary projectiles and now weaker   main projectile are overpowered by the knight's  armor if anything this problem is exacerbated   even more against extremely high Pierce armor  targets like huskarls going from 12 seconds to   23 meaning they're about half as effective against  them of course better micro could partially offset   this but even with the faster reloading and more  projectiles hussite wagons are starting to not   feel like a gunpowder unit anymore since high  enemy pure summer negates a lot of its damage   we can generalize all of this with a graph where  here along the x-axis we have increasing enemy   Pierce armor and along the y-axis is a measure  of damage output here given as how much damage   they do every 4.6 seconds which sounds confusing  but the main idea is that the old hussite Wagon   in blue lost damage against High armored units  relatively slowly whereas the new hussite Wagon   in Orange has a much faster drop off notice the  new hussite wagon is better against very low   armor units having either zero or one Pier summer  but at least in Castle age this is pretty clearly   a Nerf unless you're doing something pretty  amazing with its new micro ability I should   note this graph does take accuracy and attack  rate into account for both as well and backs   up what we've already seen in practice but now  let's check out the elite version in Imperial age   gaining some attack on both the main and secondary  projectiles along with more HP and pure summer for   the wagon itself doing a similar comparison right  away the new Elite hussite wagon looks a little   better taking out an R Blaster faster the art  Blaster here is just a stand-in for any low enemy   pierce armor unit and while we seem to be off to  a good start as it turns out if we go up in enemy   armor the cast leads Trend re-emerges against  a paladin for example the old wagons took 28   seconds compared to the new wagons 45 to bring it  down where obviously longer is worse again we can   put all the variables together into a chart and we  see a very similar Trend where despite attacking   faster and with more secondary projectiles the  new Elite hussite wagon legs the old one against   anything but the most unarmored targets now before  we wrap up we should probably talk about the other   two new hidden bonuses which as it turns out  don't really do all that much against the Ram   plus 3 sounds pretty great Until you realize that  capped and sea drams have hidden armor reducing   that damage and in fact I found before the new  change Elite hussite wagons did one more damage   than they do now against buildings as well the  new bonus can be blocked by masonry and I found   they end up doing less than half of what they were  doing before throughout this video I have to say   the consistent theme has really been that even the  things that sound good for the hussite wagons like   extra bonus damage in fact just end up keeping  them the same or making them worse than before the   overhaul when everything's factored in so to give  some final thoughts I would completely understand   if someone casually reading the changes thought  this was all a massive buff for the hussite wagon   but upon closer inspection it was actually almost  completely Nerfs across the board that said the   change to firing all projectiles at once has big  implications for microing to the point you can   probably offset some of these weaknesses to give  this all a little extra context Bohemians are at   the moment quite good on Arena and doing poorly on  open maps like Arabia while it's true the unit can   be quite annoying to face when it's masked and  could be contributing to their High blend rate   on closed Maps it'll be interesting to see if the  devs end up tweaking the unit based on feedback   before the August patch goes live or if this is  the direction they want to push it with a heavy   emphasis on micro and dealing with very low armor  enemies at the cost of handling things with even   moderate Pierce armor personally I think the idea  of Hit and Run is a little odd for the hussite   wagon considering their historical inspiration  and if anything a pack and unpacked mechanic   would make more sense though again acknowledge  not everything in ab2 has to be historically   authentic that'll do it for this one though  thanks for watching guys I'll see you next time

Channel: Spirit Of The Law

Views: 92,551

Keywords: aoe2, age of empires 2, definitive edition, sotl, spirit of the law, aoe2 definitive edition, new, beginner, gameplay, tutorial, guide, aoe, age of empires, tips, tricks, hussite wagon, bohemians, august patch, patch, update

Id: JoUonQr0iVs

Length: 9min 23sec (563 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 16 2023