Alright, why is that a bad thing? I don't think it's a terribly hard argument to make, but you at least need to establish some rhetorical grounding before people can have a conversation.
because it takes skill out of the equation and allows cc to just be a hard counter to UD. Sacrifice and retribution are nice but using them just because a champion got hammer striked is a good way to rack up losses against good opponents. @JazzMan1221 I don't know how many times I have to tell people I play every faction.
A faction's identity is based in large part on this statement. UD faction flavor is kill or die. Not crutching on bodyguard and cleanse. You shame the faction with your call for cleanse in a faction that has functioned since the beginning of pox without cleanse by compensating with Sacrifice and Retribution. Perhaps UD is not the faction for you? You seem to be worried about preserving your champions and "protecting" them. Perhaps IS is more your style as they have multiple sources of bodyguard, cleanse, and ways to redeploy a champion.
UD cleanses with sac and ret, I commend the statements here. It is one of the scrongest instances of faction identity and purefire almost ruined it already before it was thankfully changed.
when you get hammer striked(or similiar cc) "kill or die" doesn't really work out to well. @Boozha sac and retri do not work as cleanses... If your champ is high hp and gets ccd it is pretty much dead next turn. If you are saccing a high hp unit, that is usually going to be a big loss and playing like this will lose you alot of games.
- The solution(s) your looking for are sacrifice and retribution. I'd take those over cleanse...but the grass is always greener...we could argue wasting nora to cleanse a low hp champ isn't worth it either.
Sac/retri does not counter cc... Sac/retri is effective when used on low hp units not on a full hp grimlic that just got hit by a hammer strike and that is now condemned to death. Being forced to sac/retri grimlic in that case would increase your chances of losing greatly.
- Cleansing low hp units would increase your chances of losing greatly...this game is fun, let's do another category. p.s. get tortun'd
I'm a top UD player and I don't approve this message (lawl). We need more Goblins. That's what UD needs. The spells are there but I get you. Nobody uses them, I guess we need 40 runes in a bg. They could get a tilt but that's about it. UD elves, minos, spiders, fire, beasts are fine. Imps are if they're not vs tortuns. Goblins, Bleed or Bok, Goblins, Mutant need an extra hand.
Spoiler: TL,DR: CC sucks. UD has the least. Ret and Sac are your tools and lifeblood. UD can deal with CC way better than it has in the past. 'Flavor' and 'theme' are stupid reasons to not a give a faction something these days though. That ship sailed LONG AGO when most factions are sharing mechanics and blurred identities. When i played UD i always felt slighted at being hammer struck, rooted, wandered, etc.. Relieve was on champs no one played, there was no cleanse, etc.. Ret and Sac have always been the answers. There are even more similar runes these days. I've always felt that it was annoying that THAT had to be my answer. I felt every other faction had an OUT or had comparable afflictions (CC) to use in response. To Ret or Sac and be FORCED to by CC when you know if you don't that your champ will surely die the following turn, often loses you POSITION. I've always claimed that point and fought that issue. Apparently people dont really feel like position is important, or that for those two 'removal' spells to be used as our 'cleanse' is bad (because thematic). I've watched every other factions get un-thematic stuff, to be honest i feel UD is the only faction that gets blasted for being 'out of theme' with rune releases and access to mechanics. I left to play FW for a LONG time. Stitched brought me back to straddle both factions. Some champ releases would pull me to UD for stints, generally i remained FW. A long lul from game changing hands and people mainly 'playing the forums' caused me to not be as active. So i currently play UD primarily, but i don't play 3-4 matches a day or even every day. I feel UD definitely have strengths and can achieve victory. As some one said earlier, i do think UD has a flavor that for better or worse you have to adopt to win and you shouldn't play them otherwise. Saving your units, valuing their life....not great for UD. Cast them away for damage and position. Overwhelm (when you can) with death affects and champ sacrifices. I won't assess the power or balance of UD compared to other factions being that i haven't played enough recently or took an objective look. UD has come a long way, so if we NEED a cleanse...im not so sure. There are ways around things. It just irritates me when people scream "thematic/flavor" as reasons we shouldn't get it. Because pretty much every other faction has abandoned their 'flavor' long ago and are swisses with every tool they need. Also, there are FLAVORFUL ways for giving UD similar things. Im still surprised to this day that the zealots and whiners allowed Blood Bow to exist. I still remember the Paingel Backlash that led to it getting nerfed and soon after everyone realizing it was the weakest (utility and function wise) of most of the Angels.
I could be missing something, but I'm sure purefire is a decent bit of spot cleanse. Personally I prefer sac/ret.
Purefire only dispells if you run minotaur stoker because of his ability. Hmm, maybe I am wrong. Maybe sacrifice and retribution are the answer. I will test later.
I am quite a fan of UD, though not exclusively. I do certainly agree that lack of several options to spot cleanse can be problematic when a nice champ is Hammerstruck, etc. For me personally, I LIKE the fact that I don't have several cleanse options. It's part of the UD character. It makes me make a tough choice about taking a Demon Lich and / or a Dark Pact. Each gives me a type of protection, but each has drawbacks. To me, that is the sweet anxiety of playing UD. If I wanted lots of cleanse options, I would use a diffrent faction (most likely ST or IS) and adjust my playstyle. Or play splits. When I play FF UD I do run a Demon Lich, but he gives alt damage, fire eater and consumed by flame, as well as the cleanse option. I also run Dark Pact, for my nice Ireguards. The tactical use of DP is all part of the game. Pox is a much better game when each faction CAN do everything, but there are some who do it very well and others who are poor at it. As Badgerale noted a few posts back. Tough choices and different playstyles are the name of the game.
When I'm getting rushed by some UD champ hitting for ~20 damage early game that I need to disable or lose, my first thought isn't "Shame they don't have spot cleanse, my ability to slow this guy down feels unfair."
I very much agree with that. UD really ought to be stomping you early game with beaters. 'Never mind your fancy tricks. Now, how are you going to deal with my big club?!' Then the opponent has to deploy fancy stuff to stop the assault. That's UD in a nutshell.
