Forsaken Wastes Champions Collection of Souls Starting Abilities: Flight, Soul Siphon, Attack: Loss of Life, Soul Linked Matriarch Sarinda Default Cost to 52 Upgrade Set 1: Corruption, Violence Charged 1 (default), Reclaim Remains Skeletal Lerper Default Cost to 76 Upgrade Set 2: Rend 1, Rend 3, Flanking (default) Bloodtracker Default Cost to 69 Upgrade Set 1: Melee Specialist 3, Empowered: Speed (default), Zeal: Damage Main Patch Notes Abilities Forglar Swamp Forsaken Wastes Ironfist Stronghold K'thir Forest Savage Tundra Shattered Peaks Sundered Lands Underdepths
Definitely a nerf but not so sure its huge. Flanking should be pretty easy to proc for both themes considering the number of summons that are usually running around.
Haunting visions was the problem, not surge. Doesn't surprise me though, old players were losing to me, so they had to be appeased by making skeletons unviable. Things like AOE battle leader still exist though. Edit: Actually, Surge was a huge problem on the invis unit capturing fonts than 1 shotting guys. I wanted them to fix it, just not now. It wasn't as big a problem as battle leader AOE killing small units and breaking the game. I'd much rather see them fix that, THEN nerf skeletons.
Battle Leader is getting changed to AoE 5 instead of global but didnt make this patch due to needing small code changes.
aoe 5 sounds way better than nothing though edit: from the crate Battle Leader - 5 spaces instead of global, Heal to 6 from 4 If the heal gets uped like this it could use the once per turn clause
Battle Leader and Swarm will always be problematic for summon based themes but thats how counters work. An AoE will limit how out of hand it can get though.
Skeletons have enough counters. Take for instance, all aoe abilities. Now you put AOE on battle leader, thats 2 counters in one. If it was AOE adjacent, MAYBE it would be better. Aoe 5 is a joke. Its actually a buff if they increase the heal lmao. Unless you don't protect your battle leader units, in which case, whatever good for u for letting me win a game. Its also inconsistent. They remove all other aura abilties, because they don't want snowballling. But, side fonts were never effected by aura abilities anyways. And battle leader does the exact same thing as defender and commander, its just... better? lmao. Oh yeah you have to kill a unit for it to work : wow, our bonus doesn't even work till a unit dies, so give me a break, you can't argue thats a huge limiting factor but not say that FW doesnt have a huge limiting factor in their bonus.
It isnt a huge limiting factor nor am I arguing that Battle Leader is a bad ability. In most cases an AoE on Battle Leader wont change anything at all. It does however provide some some small bit of tactical counterplay. Using Skeletons as an example, a FW player may try to spread the map and apply pressure to side fonts using Lerpers and Graveyards and Bone Mines. This forces the opponent to de-centralize their units. As an IS player I would normally respond with a unit like Terraformer or Bastion that can output AoE damage. I could use Battle Leader to clear the summons and still provide healing and damage to the main bulk of my forces that may be located at a different font. Now, I will still be sending the same units into those situations. The difference is that they can no longer contribute to the rest of the map. The units I would typically use to respond to side font threats will usually be more expensive than the investment made to threaten the font. Before that investment difference could be mitigated by Battle Leader but now it cant. As for the FW bonus, I generally agree. I am hardly an expert in FW so I cant really speak to the benefits the bonus can provide but it is commonly thought to be one of worst in the game.
AOE on battle leader is grossly overpowered. As soon as you commit, an AOE medal of valor makes you lose the game. If you don't commit, a ranged battle leader slowly picks off your units, granting bonuses to a super champ. Side fonts are a non issue anymore, skeletons won't be doing that unless it is with a broken bones or graveyard summon, simply because it costs more money to defend than to pressure. Lerper is tier 2-3 now. Much better designed in the long run, but not viable when compared with other themes which do the same thing but better. Him losing surge spirits is moot, since surge spirits wasn't really that good on him to begin with. Not to mention, battle leader isn't consistent with the concious design decision to remove aura abilities from themes (a poor descision btw) depite it being the best aura ability in the game by FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR. Honestly, medal of valor is the true culprit, since it makes it impossible to balance it on an individual level. But certain champions also are overpowered with it, particularly corgi ranger with the ranged auto and mobility. Melee battle leader is SOMEWHAT manageable.
Im surpised broken bones or graveyard wasn't nerfed lol. 2 best runes in skeles. If it was cheaper, shadowstrike with rend 3 would be interesting on the lerper.