Hi guys - let me clear these things up -
1. Animation Cancel is part of the game and will never be taken out.
2. The Current Crawler animation cancel is meant to be powerful but not as powerful as it is, I think it may be glitchy atm due to two issues,
a. The crawler has amazing acceleration so when you click to move away to cancel the animation it may be insta cancel which It should not.
b. As you know we have finishers or duels in the game, one of the crawlers attacks, may put him in an un-target-able state during his flip, which may be part of why they are so hard to target.
Rest assure I take all the balance stuff seriously and am thankful we have a great community to find things to fix. I'm still not 100% with my findings yet, but I am about 90% sure the crawlers animation cancel will be changed to at least will not be so instant.
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I will also note that , putting two units head to head to fight, is no indication of which is better, because of ability's unit composition, cost, build time, armor rating, bonus vs armor, population, moment speed acceleration, unit collaboration, and so many more....
I understand two units head to head is no indication of which is better, but it is a factor. In the early game, population, bonus vs armor, moment speed acceleration, and all that other stuff is virtually irrelevant in comparison. What matters is whether I am getting bigger bang for my buck. Early game is so important and if my 300 gold army can destroy my opponent's 650 gold army, there are some serious flaws that need to be addressed.
I really think you need to thought-experiment all the possible scenarios and counters in order to really balance the game. There should be a back and forth battle for the middle ground, not a one side dominate the other in 1 minute which it currently is.