Cool Champs that are Inefficient

Tundra barbarian- Split rune with savage tundra that's all

Dwarven mountaineer- Split rune with iron fist
On base abilities tough 1, drunkard, resistance frost and mountaineer removed
upgrade line 1- on the house, defender,
upgrade line 2- carouse, ally ironfist, ally tundra

7 damage
6 speed
1 range
4 defense
50 health

 

Perhaps a bit strong. Sorry.

I feel like Dew is just overcosted, perhaps not by much, and it would be nice to have an alternate pick to tidal wave (dive is just filler)

Marid is a combat champion that needs to be within 4 range yet has vuln physical. I get the idea of having drawbacks but vuln phys is killer. Is he really good enough that he needs it?

Dao again, vuln magical is pretty harsh but at lesat he can get up to 4 def to help mitigate it. He just has reflexes not evasive and as most magic is ranged it's pushing you towards deflect which really jacks up his price (which for some reason he has :sand for an extra cost increase over vanilla deflect).


On reflection I think i'd like the gift: abilities to be more central to the champs, remade to be stronger, and then balanced around that. It always seemed to be the point but if you're building hyaenids is it even worth including them over more dogpile champs?

 

Tundra barbarian- Split rune with savage tundra that's all

Dwarven mountaineer- Split rune with iron fist
On base abilities tough 1, drunkard, resistance frost and mountaineer removed
upgrade line 1- on the house, defender,
upgrade line 2- carouse, ally ironfist, ally tundra

7 damage
6 speed
1 range
4 defense
50 health


Arctic turtle

Remove amphibious, damage shield frost 2 on base

Upgrade line 1- slowing armor, gore, chill 2
upgrade line 2- protective, frost cone, tremor

6 damage
6 speed
1 range
3 defense
50 health

Glacier Rhino

upgrade line 1- tremor, charge 2,
upgrade line 2- declare hunted

7 damage
6 speed
1-2 range
2 defense
60 health

Remove gore from base and put rend 1

Ice wurm

upgrade line 1- domain snow, tunnel snow 2, manic
upgrade line 2- hidden arctic, chill 2

base
8 damage
6 range
1-3 range
2 defense
45 health

Remove ice veil

 

Witches. Elsari Coven just isn't a real link between a bunch of different units.

Blood/vampires. KF has a few units, UD & FW are the main ones. Just seems like nobody runs these & it's all a waste.

Blood Owl. Poor guy is just fairly mediocre for who he is.

 

Also Firk Voidmage god damn that's a high price tag even though I feel his core ability is correctly cost. I'm not sure where the price tag comes from, however his U2 line is really quite pointless with defenceless and 44 hp. Even U1 is quite iffy with that fragile frame and only 6 spd.

I do think he should still be high cost, but perhaps not as squishy/forced to avoid any and all of his upgrades? Currently the 78 nora build (if you're running him because hes quite bad even in psy) is the most optimal.Such a fragile frame is sandbagged by defensive abilities so it doesn't really need them at all.

Psy has plenty of 4-6 range units, another one that serves the same damage role is competing in a really tough spot. Perhaps reduce the range to reduce his cost too. Likewise his damage is quite high for an amp theme, especially considering hes ranged, and the fact that hes expected to click TP/swap/spatial dysplasia a decent amount of turns, the damage seems wasted considering he will never be attacking all that much. His HP is also quite low, making the whole of U2 pointless. On top of that U1 whores a lot of his AP/sandbags him a lot when he doesn't need it. It would be a decent upgrade line if he was an ability bot but hes not.

I would suggest either going the ability bot route, or simply being another 'efficient' ranged utility/beater in the same vein as mindcaller/executor/pinger.

Perhaps change his stats to:

Reduce Dmg by 2
Increase Hp by 2
Reduce range 4-5 (Already have SO many 6 range units).

To get started, and then consider something like:

Remove defenseless from base.
Vulnerable base
TP 1 Base

U1 (speed?)
Logistics: Speed
Swap
Reallocate Speed

U2 (voidmage stuff? Perhaps more clickable abilities?)
Corruption
Void Shield/Para
Essence Capture

For a ranged beater etc.

 

Running short range champs north of 80 nora is just asking for trouble, unfortunately... Unless it's something incredibly hard to shift like Moog. There are so many incredible options between 60-80n it really needs to be something special to include. Maybe it's a wider problem with pox than these champions in particular, but I wouldn't even know where to start on that.

I don't think I could justify deploying him without spontaneous as he is just too easy to take off the field, but that bumps his price up to 94 which is just insane when you compare him to other champions in that price range that offer so much more (again - moog, or damn any of the titans, hydraxor who has the ability to snowball)

I don't feel like any of the options on upgrade path 1 are especially appealing, either.

I also don't know how to improve him. I suck.

 

Replace grant: evasive from u1 with jolt1 from base, would make him 70-73?

Then he's got some cool options for his offense in u1 and some varied mobility utility in u2.

 

This one is cool and the sprite is fun, still never used

Maybe if he could drop something usefull while flying aimless.. dunno.. like.. gattlinguns

 

The art and sprite from this skeezick is awesome yet it has 8 better options for the same role as melee fighter in skeezicks.

I have no idea what i would change from him to make it work.

 

Will update with rationale but this is my early list:

Cleric of unrest:

Demon Lich:

Dwarven Roughneck:
I think this one is mostly due to flashbomb being an awful, sandbaggy ability right now that doesn't actually offer the benefits of stealth and relocation with enough consistency to justify a 10n pricetag.

Priest of Fury:

Jakei Soulpainter:
I would love to see take form gain some restrictions in exchange for a big nora cost reduction - what about starting on cooldown and range down to 5? How much of a cost break would that be worth? It would at least address the conflict between take form and having a champ with innate abilities (other than on-deploy effects, which might be another way to take this champ).

Dreadwing:

Arroyo Echo:
Suppression looks like an awful tradeoff to me - spending 2ap to maybe deny a single opponent 2ap, compare this ability at 7n to stall at 8n.

Tortalleon Transport:
Transport is a cool idea that is poorly executed. I can think of zero reasons to run this champ other than some kind of exploit that has already been guarded against by restricting it to tortuns.

 

The Sand Elemental, one of the coolest arts, one of the reasons i became a SLer. Its just a bunch of boring stats, most other sand champs do its job of just tank and make sand waay better.

I would give it split and reconstitute like the plant thingy from FS "Mucker", Would split work with a 2x2?
Atk 8
Spd 5
Rng 1-1
Def 1
HP 40?
Base:
Split
Reconstitute
Ponderous
U1: Sands of Time, Sand Camouflage, Burning Sandspout
U2: Domain Sand, Desert Front, Death Nova: Sand

If this changes are too drastical then please consider Death Nova: Sand, Impair abilities or something that makes it more fun

 

This guys been around ages but i dont think ive ever seen him in actual bg's, even in decks where his similarily fat brother the soulthirster makes an appearance and he definitely looks unique, which is why i like him.

Unfortunately im also unsure how to improve him. Range 1-2 would be a good start. The usual solution to impatient is manic but that might be too drastic.

 

Soulbleeder is definitely, absolutely fine as is and his absence from the meta has more to do with the current UD playstyle than his own deficiencies.

 

Incinerator. I've always liked him but he's always sucked. 5 speed, low survivability and no real purpose have doomed him from the start. +1 speed and trade the really cool, unique upgrade ability Purging Flames for the useless base Melt ability. Keep cost the same.

 

Did he have a period where he was played? Was it in a FW split? What was the deck like?

 

Meta UD. Deep elf teleport chick a 25 damage soulbleeder around the map with impatient was not pleasant to face.

 

I'd like to see Deathcaster get some of his old shine back. When it was first buffed a while ago, it saw quite a bit of play, since you were able to run it at under 80 nora with Soulsift 2. Currently it's just way too expensive and 1-dimensional for that to work, and it's only purpose is to use Death Pace once, then explode on people. I don't find this particularly attractive for a champion that costs almost 80 nora at his cheapest. Following his theme of a self-destructive, pain-wielding mage, I think something like this would suit him well:

-10 HP
2-4 range
Self Destruct, Death Nova, and Disease Eater removed from base
Vulnerability: Acid to base
New upgrades in both trees

Thrash added to base
Vitality: Creation added to base
New upgrade T1: Tormented, Drain 2
New upgrade T2: Perseverence, Damage Shield: Disease 3, Masochism

So the final product would end up looking like this:

10 damage
6 speed
2-4 range
0 defense
44 HP

Attack - Magical
Death Pact
Thrash
Vitality: Creation
Vulnerability: Acid

U1: Tormented, Drain 2
U2: Perseverence, Damage Shield: Disease 3, Masochism

 

Exorcist.

Remove Exorcism from Base/Game
Remove Cleanse from Base
Add Solidify to Base.
Add Spellswallower to Base
U2 is now: Cleanse, Purified, Relieve

 

not a champ, but a cool equip imo is bonesplitter maul. With lots of other equips affecting 2 classes. Skystorm spear, elite blade, cloak of long knives, stitched hex doll, etc. Itd be cool to see it changed to warrior or brute