Buff them!

[Raileks]

So what runes are there pretty much unanimous consent on buffing.

The only two that come to my mind at the moment are moga den, protect the nest, and frostguard.

The List

Moga Den
Protect the Nest
Frostguard
Minefield
Conceal-Ability
Tremor - ability

[CPKZ]

Protect the Nest needed to be buffed.

Alas, they nerfed it recently.

[mewsass]

UD's titan, Deep Elf Fanatic and SL altogether.

[Raileks]

UD's titan, Deep Elf Fanatic and SL altogether.

I don't mean stuff that may need it. I mean stuff so bad that when played against newbies they feel sorry for you.

[Setheral]

My list of what i can think of right now

Broken Bones
Decayed Merc
Goblin Brute
Magma Bunny
Dark Knight
Drunken Thug
Draksar Explorer
Disturbed Spirit
Boneguard Infantry
High Mason
Mastodon
Ambling Frond

cant think of any others this bad right now....

[Raileks]

Broken Bones
Decayed Merc
Goblin Brute
Magma Bunny
Dark Knight
Drunken Thug
Draksar Explorer
Disturbed Spirit
Boneguard Infantry
High Mason
Mastodon
Ambling Frond

I can't believe you added magma bunnies. I slaughter with magma bunnies. Dark knight can be a real nuisance in skilled hands, and Drunken Thug is quite useable. Disturbed Spirit is still a big annoyance as ever to the unprepared..

I don't think its being quite understood yet. While some of these may be second rate choices I'm looking for runes that are so bad its actually hurting you badly to play them.

Moga den you are actually being drained massive amounts of nora for near useless champs.

Protect the nest, you spend 50 nora for six summons that take forever to show up and even if they didn't wouldn't be good for what their namesake would suggest.

Frostguard is an anti rush rune that casts a defensive trap around your shrine that won't even trigger against the most common shrine rushers(rascal fairy, imp) because they don't get close enough and even if it did trigger would barely have any effect on the rush.


I've used mastodon before. Its a third tier rune but it does what its meant to, right. Draksar explorer recently got a buff. Explorer recently got a buff and while still not an effective champ it at least is capable of doing what its supposed to be able to do.
Highmason is just outdone by better options but not at all underpowered.

I want to almost agree with you with the two skellies, frond, and brute but frond may actually serve a purpose as a cheap hidden shatterer. the skellies come in decks we're quickly killed quick comeback champs are prized. With some speed upgrades their cheapness and synergy would make them useable. No one does because summoned skellies are alot cheaper.

Goblin brute is equally bad. It has almost no synergy(the little does due to altar of voltaev). I'm split on whether it counts but I think everyone would unanimously agree that it horribley horribly sucks.

[DirkOfPerk]

Minefield and Draksar Chameleon.

[guydude23]

Deep elf fanatic needs a major buff, ever since pounce and enrage was nerfed hes has become useless in my opinion and his defense is way to low

[Badgerale]

grundlewolf, give it pounce 3.

and swarm.

[ThePlumber]

Disturbed Spirit
Haunt

[Raileks]

Disturbed Spirit
Haunt

right now I'd agree with you on haunt but if more relics like echo chamber keep coming out it might not need it.

[Alrikor]

Well this isn't a rune, but it's an ability that I think everybody should agree is the worst ability in the game.

Conceal - You flip over a couple enemy runes, their cooldown is reduced to zero, and this ability costs YOU nora. Hooray for spending nora to reduce enemy cooldowns!

Alright, well I'm a Forsaken Wastes player so let's go with the Forsaken Wastes list (as requested, I will only include runes that are REALLY bad):

Risen Yeti. The Risen Yeti was once a bad unit that was outdone by the Executioner, Abomination, and Skeletal Berzerker, to name a few. I was on a crusade to make Octopi give the Risen Yeti the "Icewalker" ability for free. The result? Risen Yeti did get Icewalker... but not for free. Icewalker is a +6 nora ability. Compare this to Arctic, which gives Icewalker, +1 speed on snow/ice, and immunity to Frozen and Chilled and you're like, "What the heck?" So effectively, giving him Icewalker made an expensive unit even more expensive, putting him from a shoebox rune position to being at the table at the Shoebox Cafeteria where all of the shoebox runes nobody wants to hang out with are kicked out to.

Absorb Magic. I think it should be renamed "Absorb a Select Few Spells Among Hundreds," as the name would be better fitting. Absorb Magic effects hardly any spells, as there are very few single target spells that are intended to be used on your own units. What's worse is I hear if you cast a rune like "Defend the Roost," which cannot be used on undead, then an error message pops up for the enemy and not only does Absorb Magic get wasted, but Defend the Roost is refunded and has zero cooldown. Great. I get to spend 40 nora to give the opponent an error message. That would almost be as good as spending 100 nora to pop out the opponent's CD-drive.

Chain Lightning. Alright, so you might say, "This rune isn't THAT bad!" Well maybe not, if you exclude the fact that it hits your own champions, needs a target champion, needs champions within two spaces of each other to jump, and does barely any damage (for 45 nora). Ice Storm, for 50 nora, has a huge AoE, does quite a bit of damage (adding the DoT it does only two less than Chain Lightning does on its initial target, three more for Chain Lightning's secondary targets, and eight more for Chain Lightning's tertiary targets), and also grounds the opponent. Alright, so yeah, I'm comparing this rune to a x2 auto-include, but compare it to something like Hellfire (which is also shoebox), and you'll find Hellfire is better than Chain Lightning. The only thing cool about Chain Lightning is that it would be one letter away from being the name for a cool Jackie Chan move, "Chan Lightning".

Haunt. I don't even need to talk about this one, because talking about this would haunt me.

Plague. I don't have a whole lot to say about this rune... it's just bad. I'd rather have the Bubonic Plague than be forced to play this rune.

Plague Trap. This is probably the worst trap of any out there, and I have never seen it used before besides this one time I was trying to use it (I lost, by the way). Dealing eight damage is just really unimpressive, and the trap itself doesn't even make the unit Diseased (as far as I know), just Infectious, so they make other units Diseased (but not by very much).

Ancient Elsari Helm. The reason this helmet is probably ancient is because it sucked so much and tossed it in a shoebox, so nobody found it for thousands of years. So they took it out of the shoebox, figured out what it does, and threw it right back in. Hopefully if some more explorers come around in the future the Ancient Elsari Helm will have decided to make itself not suck so much. This is definitely one of the worst of the helmets, and most expensive. I don't get the point when all it does is add a minor inconvenience and can probably be shattered/disarmed pretty easily.

[Tarth]

just saying high mason is underpowered. 51 nora for mason 3 and thats it, is massively over prieced. so yea hes underpowered for his cost.

[Mithris]

Nora Surge for Forsaken Wastes.

[matthewshy]

This discussion is going to be a long list of runes people simply don't like... why don't we say what is wrong with the runes and what could be done to improve them?

I say

ark of the elsari: a 3 tiles dead magic zone is completely useless on many maps... there are simply too many ways to avoid or destroy it. I would change it from "whenever your opponent casts a spell, the dead zone grows by 1 for 4 turns" to "whenever your opponent casts a spell, the dead zone grows by 1"

hungry dead: one of the few AoE spells of Forsaken Wastes and is only AoE 2... 4 damages and ensnared 1 means that most of enemies will be slowed down 1 turn and will take only 4 damages before leaving... a bit expensive for 40 nora!
I would make it AoE 3 or 5 damage for 5 turns or ensnared 2.

plague: very hard to use it in a smart way... most of times you will deal 5 damage to 1-2 adiacent enemies, but there are many better spells than this.
I would change from "Target Champion you control becomes Diseased 5 and Infectious 5" into "Target Champion becomes Diseased 5 and Infectious 5"

[Setheral]

hungry dead: one of the few AoE spells of Forsaken Wastes and is only AoE 2... 4 damages and ensnared 1 means that most of enemies will be slowed down 1 turn and will take only 4 damages before leaving... a bit expensive for 40 nora!
I would make it AoE 3 or 5 damage for 5 turns or ensnared 2.


i cant believe this was brought up in here....

[Raileks]

just came across another one.

Tremor. Hurts your own units. Hurts the guy who uses it. Is difficult and almost not worth using even without the drawbacks.

[Jazin]

I'd have to agree with the person that brought up the Goblin Brute. I'm a relatively new player, but if I saw an opponent bring out a Goblin Brute ... I'd probably have to concede the game, and then offer him/her some cash to go get a nice warm meal.

This unit has no obtainable abilities.
Not worthy of it's picture, or the mentioning of "Brute" in it's title.
Even with 20 nora difference, simply compare the Brute to the Goblin Archer. They share 28 hps, and 7 damage. So in other words a Brute is not tougher than an Archer. The Brute is 11/10 on A/D while the Archer is 10/9. The Archer moves at 8, has 6 range, AND multiattack 1.

Point is.. While cheap at 35 nora, there is little use he can be other than a speed bump. It's a shoebox Rune, and a waste. Feel free to look at other 35 nora runes, such as Death Guard or Afflicted Corpse and compare.

The irony is I don't even play UD, nor do I think they're hurting in anyway... but I also don't think there should be Runes out there that have no use. It's simply wasteful.

[Raileks]

I'd have to agree with the person that brought up the Goblin Brute. I'm a relatively new player, but if I saw an opponent bring out a Goblin Brute ... I'd probably have to concede the game, and then offer him/her some cash to go get a nice warm meal.

This unit has no obtainable abilities.
Not worthy of it's picture, or the mentioning of "Brute" in it's title.
Even with 20 nora difference, simply compare the Brute to the Goblin Archer. They share 28 hps, and 7 damage. So in other words a Brute is not tougher than an Archer. The Brute is 11/10 on A/D while the Archer is 10/9. The Archer moves at 8, has 6 range, AND multiattack 1.

Point is.. While cheap at 35 nora, there is little use he can be other than a speed bump. It's a shoebox Rune, and a waste. Feel free to look at other 35 nora runes, such as Death Guard or Afflicted Corpse and compare.

The irony is I don't even play UD, nor do I think they're hurting in anyway... but I also don't think there should be Runes out there that have no use. It's simply wasteful.


Yeah its pretty sad but I decided to draw the line at, the rune can't just suck, it has to hurt you in some way as well. If you spend nora for a speed bump at least you got a speed bump. Spend nora on one of the other runes on the list and you have a speed bump that stabs your own tires.

[Agroagro]

There is articles in game design circles explaining why collectible games need peices of different power levels and effectiveness. It makes alot on sense. Players need to expariment to decide which things are best and then have thing to strive towards.