I took a while until the first content creator video about the Hei Guang came out. Ornlu tested it against a variety of units in his video:
And it might look like the unit would perform basically just like a Knight in most matchups. So their might be the question uprising if this isn’t just a “Regional Knight Skin packaged as an entirely new unit”. And it sure is a Knight replacement for these civs.
But here I will explain how the unit actually notably differs from the Knights. It won’t be noticable in every game and it will also be very dependent on the Skill level you are on wether you will notice it.
BUT I will make the bold prediction already here that the pros will notice it - and they will see that the unit is in general a bit weaker than the Knight line. That said, the Wei might possibly become seen as one of the best, if not even the best Hei Guang(Knight rush civs in the game.
But how do I come to this conclusion. In the video the Hei Guang seems to perform basically the same as Knights with the Wei one in some situations even heavily outperforming the standard Knight line?
It’s two main points:
A) Hei Guang Cav is much more dependent on upgrades than the Knight line. And the Video only shows the matchups WITH all available upgrades researched.
B) The Hei Guang is exaclty so designed that it performs exactly the same as Knights in the pure common unit Matchups with these upgrades in. But it will be notably worse against most other stuff that isn’t as common - or just not factored in. In a few specific cases it is actually better, but for me the less favourable situations weigh much more.
I will keep it simple with just a few examples what I refer to here. We might get into other stuff later in this thread.
For A) the best example imo is the matchup “unupgraded” Hei Guang vs “unupgraded” Knight. The Hei Guang kills the Knight in 12 Hits whilst the Knight kills the Hei Guang in 10. Seems not that much of a difference, also witth respect to Hei Guang being a bit cheaper and faster to train. But it’s a commonly observable difference that Hei Guang just can tank less than Knights when they aren’t fully upgraded. Bracer X-Bows need 15 hits to kill an unupgraded Hei Guang but 20 to kill an unupgraded Knight.
For B) the probably best example is Castle fire. Castles have very high damage - and Hei Guang has jsut a little bit more armor and less HP. So Castles volleys take away a notably higher portion of a Hei Guangs Cavalrys Health Pool. Ofc in most situations you don’t really want neither Knights nor Hei Guang to run into enemy Castles. But we all know there might be situations in Games where you need to tank some Castle fire and ofc sometimes you run into it by accident.
And there is a lot of other Stuff like Scorpions and even Mangonels that have a high base Attack so the Armor of the Hei Guang doesn’t comes into play as much. This ofc doesn’t come into play very often but when it does it will be noticable.
Lastly - even against the common counter in the spearman line. The Hei Guang in the pure direct matchup performs practically the same as Knights. But it’s actually so that the Spearmen take away a slightly higher portion of the health Pool of the Hei Guang with every hit. This means when there is any other unit involved like for example Archer Line units, they might be more able to kill wounded Hei Guang. This is a incremental advantage that can swing close fights in the other direction. Even with only common units Hei Guang can perform notably worse.
The Hei Guang might perform better against a few specific other stuff tho. It seems like the Swordsman line has a bad day against them.
What do you think? Do you think it will be noticable? And do you want it to be more distinct or don’t understand the makup and would rather just give Knights to all civs (that have heavy cav)?