Where SL is at...

[molecl]

Hi all, again it has taken a while for me to post: I couldn't log on to forums so could only browse not post and I guess with expansion and beta it took a lot longer to let me log in...

So lets re-assess SL and the new runes we got.

Firstly, you might all be surprised but I actually think SL is a lot less top game competitive (unless some changes get brought out or I am missing some vital new play for SL) after this expansion especially as before the expansion I was pretty positive about SL. Mixed SL BG were top middle pre nora surge (behind FS and UD/x) but could take on pretty much anything else.

However, KF and SP got some superb stuff this expansion and we got a few nice runes that will see play but won't change game play much (Dreadnought, vin Skee) an interesting possible 1 include (battle fatigue like enslave from last exp will be useful in some situations and can be very effective), 1 that looks very good on paper (sunderpede) and some other interesting flavor ones that are just tooooo expensive

1) Dreadnought= auto include if u have got (take out a destroyer or maybe even vinny), nevertheless he is a bit disappointing: without cleave he is pretty much a souped up destroyer more hp, multi, one extr regen, mobility options, unstoppable but a lot more expensive. With cleave he is very effective as he can get through a lot of champs in a drac b/ drum push. That said we are actually lucky he is still quite efficient as he has a lot of sandbags: leap 2, mobility, fear, even unstoppable (although this is ok),120 nora with cleave and 1 hp

2) vindictive skee= double auto for skee decks at 69 nora for 9 speed and 3hp. Very effective once a skee dies easy to get 2 hits in from a long way away

3) sunderpede: looks good, habitation is good (u can run it at a risky 8 speed as it gets +1 speed if u have a font) regen 3, split. But in play ANY good player can easily one turn it: a couple of hits then an AoE= all ur split sunderpedes gone and lots of nora globes for the opponent... he is actually very easy to take down

4) Battle fatigue: quite nice actually play at the end of ur go and effects the opponent for 2 turns and u for 1. Is quite situational main shame is we can't drac b for a rush then play this after. After some testing like enslave I predict this will be quite useful

5) Varu dragon: antagonize is nice but with that and multi and hp is 90+, just too expensive and sonic roar is garbage: u will never get to play it!

6) dune walker really nice flavour rune good for giving extra mobility: beware of timer though I got confused a lot of time playing drac and laying trails and trying to get tunnels right: But again is going to be 90 nora which means u want him to be very combat worthy but then he loses his support role. Just too pricey

7) Mine Spell: Worse spell of expansion, real garbage. Mines do so little damage no-one cares about them: far far far worse than hatching season. Mines need at least double damage maybe even 12 for it to be effective

8) Sand relic thing.... erm 40 nora for some sand..... which does nothing apart form allow u some tunnelling and strikers to be invis... erm and it takes ages for sand to get to where combat is.... erm no....

9) Lasher helm... erm 5 damage on their champ where they can just move them back and shatter it...I don't think so. Anti-equip is going to be standard now and any equip needs to be very powerful, on your champs so u can control 1st use (i.e. dragonclaw) or difficult to get to (i.e. blindwing)...ours is underwHELMing!

[cidbahamut]

Ok so it's not just my pessimism kicking in, we did get hosed this expansion.

[DuneMaker]

I have a small problem with Dreadnought here, hum.

He starts from 113 nora and Cleave is 8 nora upgrade which is 121 nora and somehow I don't like the idea of going 2nd turn and not being able to deploy him :/

Is Cleave worth it?

[hrdngjedi]

Is Cleave worth it?

Without doubt, cleave will be my first upgrade without question if I manage to get one.

[stayflyazn]

Actually the sunderpede could last longer if you use battle fatigue as it only lets the opponent get one hit per champ on it. Battle fatigue is also good with quickening, as you get two attacks when your opponent only gets one. Vindictive skeez is a solid beater for skeez, it outclasses the dragonslayer by a lot.

I wish I could get a titan :(

[molecl]

Yeah SL titan has gone up in price: used to be able to get cleave and 1hp upgrade for 120: now options are cleave and 3hp upgrades for 124 or 3hp ugrades and charge 3 for under 120: cleave build is probably worth it

On the Sunderpede: firstly the spede then battle fatigue is pretty resttrictive build then also u need lucky draw and nora plus it won't change the difficulty it faces with AoE

hmm quickening and battle fatigue... seems nice as main problem with fatigue is that next turn u cant use drac b to hammer home the advantage... will have to test this one out...


anyone else thoughts on our runes... has anyone else laughed at the crapness of mines yet...

[Xiape]

Hi all, again it has taken a while for me to post: I couldn't log on to forums so could only browse not post and I guess with expansion and beta it took a lot longer to let me log in...

So lets re-assess SL and the new runes we got.

Firstly, you might all be surprised but I actually think SL is a lot less top game competitive (unless some changes get brought out or I am missing some vital new play for SL) after this expansion especially as before the expansion I was pretty positive about SL. Mixed SL BG were top middle pre nora surge (behind FS and UD/x) but could take on pretty much anything else.

However, KF and SP got some superb stuff this expansion and we got a few nice runes that will see play but won't change game play much (Dreadnought, vin Skee) an interesting possible 1 include (battle fatigue like enslave from last exp will be useful in some situations and can be very effective), 1 that looks very good on paper (sunderpede) and some other interesting flavor ones that are just tooooo expensive

1) Dreadnought= auto include if u have got (take out a destroyer or maybe even vinny), nevertheless he is a bit disappointing: without cleave he is pretty much a souped up destroyer more hp, multi, one extr regen, mobility options, unstoppable but a lot more expensive. With cleave he is very effective as he can get through a lot of champs in a drac b/ drum push. That said we are actually lucky he is still quite efficient as he has a lot of sandbags: leap 2, mobility, fear, even unstoppable (although this is ok),120 nora with cleave and 1 hp

2) vindictive skee= double auto for skee decks at 69 nora for 9 speed and 3hp. Very effective once a skee dies easy to get 2 hits in from a long way away

3) sunderpede: looks good, habitation is good (u can run it at a risky 8 speed as it gets +1 speed if u have a font) regen 3, split. But in play ANY good player can easily one turn it: a couple of hits then an AoE= all ur split sunderpedes gone and lots of nora globes for the opponent... he is actually very easy to take down

4) Battle fatigue: quite nice actually play at the end of ur go and effects the opponent for 2 turns and u for 1. Is quite situational main shame is we can't drac b for a rush then play this after. After some testing like enslave I predict this will be quite useful

5) Varu dragon: antagonize is nice but with that and multi and hp is 90+, just too expensive and sonic roar is garbage: u will never get to play it!

6) dune walker really nice flavour rune good for giving extra mobility: beware of timer though I got confused a lot of time playing drac and laying trails and trying to get tunnels right: But again is going to be 90 nora which means u want him to be very combat worthy but then he loses his support role. Just too pricey



Didn't you read the first 6 runes? I think we got some nice stuff (though other factions may have gotten nice stuff too) but there's no reason to say "we got crap"

[Schmacko]

Ok so it's not just my pessimism kicking in, we did get hosed this expansion.

We came out good. it's your pessimism.

[cidbahamut]

We came out good. it's your pessimism.

Foiled again. This is going to take some heavy playtesting to figure out.

[Schmacko]

5) Varu dragon: antagonize is nice but with that and multi and hp is 90+, just too expensive and sonic roar is garbage: u will never get to play it!


Unless your hardcore you should probably only upgrade antagonize or multi attack to keep costs down. He'll still be in the high 80s with hp. Antagonize is a really good ability but makes him almost a pure utility rune. Multi gives him more offensive punch.

We really did try in beta to a) get his cost reduced, b) move sonic roar to an upgrade, and or c) get sonic roar improved.

I will definitely be running him in my dragon deck. He's a really fun rune that i think plays better than he first looks on paper.

[DuneMaker]

Here are my thoughts after a few games in beta and after release:
1) I'm not sure is Titan really worth it, I'm still much more charmed with Vinny and his aoe ability. I might just underwhelm this guy but I don't see him for like 30 nora more than Vinny. Synergy with SandWalker and Sandstorm/Spray, though, looks extremely nice :)
2) Vindicative Skeezick is quite awsome in Skeezick bg, really. The only problem I have so far is giving him multi3 as he oftenly dies first :>
3) Battle Fatigue is something much more than I thought. Surely good, maybe great spell with 9spd SL bg against... most of the stuff as most stuff are at 11spd. Works really nice with quickening and theoretically Quickening can be used easily in next round after Battle Fatigue was cast.

I don't much see other things except Sand Walker. Sunderpede looks good on paper, isn't really good in game. Oftenly gets easily killed, Poison dmg doesn't help (immunities, relics, shrine).
Varu Dragon is overcosted and either Sonic Roar should be changed (as it so far makes both Dragon and Shrieker not very playable to me) or removed to upgrades and give a recost (no idea how much is Roar worth now).

Mine Field has kind of nice concept as all mines are shadowspawned and can contest font in an interesting way. However, 5x5dmg (25) is not enough for 40 nora spell, imo. 7-8dmg each would probably make it playable in some decks.

And I believe that if SL would get one more good champ comparable to things like Veteran barb, Arctic Garu or Elven Bard this expansion would look quite nice for dragons.

[DuneMaker]

I will definitely be running him in my dragon deck. He's a really fun rune that i think plays better than he first looks on paper.

How do you upgrade him, then? And why does he look better than on paper iyo? Sand Spray?

[sokolov]

Note that Unstoppable WILL prevent the AP loss from Battle Fatigue.

[DirkOfPerk]

Note that Unstoppable WILL prevent the AP loss from Battle Fatigue.

Sok this isn't your usual forums but yes it is improtant to remember that.

[Schmacko]

How do you upgrade him, then? And why does he look better than on paper iyo? Sand Spray?

9spd, antagonize and hp for 89 nora. I can't tell you how happy i was that he was only a 1x1 unit. Sandspray is a good dmg + debuff aoe, he flies, and antagoinze is great. Use it on an oppnents titan and then chump block with melee. It's big fun.

[FriagaWolf]

May i ask what antaganize does? I havn't seen it in action(as well as cleave, but i can guess what that does) I'm very curious :P

I think the stuff SL got is more flavor then anything, expanding the sand theme and giving us some interesting things(love the varu dragon, a howler fused with a sand dragon, yummy.)

Overall i like it, we may not have gotten the best runes, but i think we got some pretty dang cool stuff.


though from a power perspective some stuff needs to be done(removing sonic roar on the dragon or making it good wold be GREAT, as though i love awestruck sonic roar is just >_>)

[Schmacko]

Antagonize: Target champion can only target and attack this champion for the next two rounds. It's a 0ap ability with a range of 3or4 and a cd of 3. What this means is you can run a melee unit up to an enemy and engage. You can then antagonize that enemy and the enemy won't be able to attack your melee guy that's engaging him or anyone else except the varu dragon.

Cleave triggers when the dreadnaught kills an enemy it gives him like 2ap and resets his attack chain. If he can keep killing units he can keep attacking other units. Potentially allowing him many many attacks in one round. It will also push him over the 120 nora mark that gives you a potential first turn drop if you're the second player.

Edit: Here's another fun fact about antagonize... that will probably be changed later, cause it's probably a bug-- if you antagonize a unit with your varu and the varu dies from DoT or whatever, the antagonized unit is still antagonized and can't attack anything. Was also mentioned somewhere that if you have two v.dragons out and they both antagonize the same unit, that unit can't attack either of them.

[DuneMaker]

Note that Unstoppable WILL prevent the AP loss from Battle Fatigue.

So this is not a good news :/.

Schmacko: you persued me to give V-Dragon a shot ^_^

[Krellen]

Bunch of expensive 9 speed champs, great. Overall you will lose to more effiecent BG.

[wuzzman]

The Varu Dragon needs both Sand Spray and Sonic Roar as a upgrade. Let me run the dragon at with multiattack and antagonize. With this I think see myself running 2 of these bad boys.

[stayflyazn]

The varu dragon is a good support champ as well as a defensive champ. Antagonize with sand spray makes it a very good combo with our beater-tanks. Stick (or charge) a tainted destroyer in front of a champ, then antagonize and sand spray. Sure its an expensive champ, but if you use him right he could pay for himself in the long with his supportive abilities if he lasted long enough.

The sunderpede isn't that bad of a champ either, its just takes a little care to use him right.
You could use the 47 hp, 8 spd (9 with habitation) build with tunnel: sand for 73 nora or 43 hp, 9 spd build with tunnel: sand . With these builds in a sand bg, he can get hit and tunnel to regen. You can also run it with the dunewalker for tunnel: sand 3. By itself it isn't a good unit, and it is a good AoE target, but it would take 2 AoEs to kill it after it has split. Attack-Poison does suck, as there are a lot of immunity: poisons running around.

[Umiko]

I have noticed that you have overloocked quickening, while Drac benediction has its place in BG for boosting you up with mobility, there are plenty of times where your units are alreayd in place with enough ap to double attack, using quickening in these situations is actually superior to drac beneadiction since you get 3 attacks in when you would only get 2 from a benediction. Now I woudlnt suggest using Battle fatigue as a straight up usage JUST to throw in quickening, if used in that regard you might as well not use battle fatigue and just use a benediction. Just I think with some testing you might see where quickening can be pulled out superior to drac, especially with our titan in the game now.

[Schmacko]

sunderpede is the shiznet. Anyone who says otherwise is just a hater. word.

For the record I think every SL champ from this expansion is good and will see play. My 3 favorite runes are V.dragon, sunderpede, and lasher helm.

[Jellybabe]

molecl is my hero. I love you molecl

[8Overlord8]

Hi all, again it has taken a while for me to post: I couldn't log on to forums so could only browse not post and I guess with expansion and beta it took a lot longer to let me log in...

So lets re-assess SL and the new runes we got.

Firstly, you might all be surprised but I actually think SL is a lot less top game competitive (unless some changes get brought out or I am missing some vital new play for SL) after this expansion especially as before the expansion I was pretty positive about SL. Mixed SL BG were top middle pre nora surge (behind FS and UD/x) but could take on pretty much anything else.

However, KF and SP got some superb stuff this expansion and we got a few nice runes that will see play but won't change game play much (Dreadnought, vin Skee) an interesting possible 1 include (battle fatigue like enslave from last exp will be useful in some situations and can be very effective), 1 that looks very good on paper (sunderpede) and some other interesting flavor ones that are just tooooo expensive

1) Dreadnought= auto include if u have got (take out a destroyer or maybe even vinny), nevertheless he is a bit disappointing: without cleave he is pretty much a souped up destroyer more hp, multi, one extr regen, mobility options, unstoppable but a lot more expensive. With cleave he is very effective as he can get through a lot of champs in a drac b/ drum push. That said we are actually lucky he is still quite efficient as he has a lot of sandbags: leap 2, mobility, fear, even unstoppable (although this is ok),120 nora with cleave and 1 hp

2) vindictive skee= double auto for skee decks at 69 nora for 9 speed and 3hp. Very effective once a skee dies easy to get 2 hits in from a long way away

3) sunderpede: looks good, habitation is good (u can run it at a risky 8 speed as it gets +1 speed if u have a font) regen 3, split. But in play ANY good player can easily one turn it: a couple of hits then an AoE= all ur split sunderpedes gone and lots of nora globes for the opponent... he is actually very easy to take down

4) Battle fatigue: quite nice actually play at the end of ur go and effects the opponent for 2 turns and u for 1. Is quite situational main shame is we can't drac b for a rush then play this after. After some testing like enslave I predict this will be quite useful

5) Varu dragon: antagonize is nice but with that and multi and hp is 90+, just too expensive and sonic roar is garbage: u will never get to play it!

6) dune walker really nice flavour rune good for giving extra mobility: beware of timer though I got confused a lot of time playing drac and laying trails and trying to get tunnels right: But again is going to be 90 nora which means u want him to be very combat worthy but then he loses his support role. Just too pricey

7) Mine Spell: Worse spell of expansion, real garbage. Mines do so little damage no-one cares about them: far far far worse than hatching season. Mines need at least double damage maybe even 12 for it to be effective

8) Sand relic thing.... erm 40 nora for some sand..... which does nothing apart form allow u some tunnelling and strikers to be invis... erm and it takes ages for sand to get to where combat is.... erm no....

9) Lasher helm... erm 5 damage on their champ where they can just move them back and shatter it...I don't think so. Anti-equip is going to be standard now and any equip needs to be very powerful, on your champs so u can control 1st use (i.e. dragonclaw) or difficult to get to (i.e. blindwing)...ours is underwHELMing!

Good way to kick ass with this is to cast it then use quikening so you get two attacks they get one good combo :)