They were nerfed to death about 5 expansions before the revamp, were hurt even worse in the revamp, and have yet to be buffed. In this thread I will examine their key needs and determine how I think they should be buffed. I'll start with Jellibrium Mind. This ability costs 8 nora and states "When this unit is deployed, a revealed rune in the opposing rune dock has +2 cooldown for each friendly unit with Jellebrium Mind, including this one. At the beginning of its turns, for every 4 runes your opponent has on cooldown, this unit is healed for 2. It also gains a rank of Teleport for 1 turn if it is a champion." A little complicated but basically more jellies means longer rune cooldowns for your opponent. At the same time the longer the game goes your jellies will probably have teleport 2 and heal for 4 per turn. This means mid to late game you are paying 8 nora for about 15 nora of abilities and the increased cooldowns. It is fairly costed because it is not an immediate benefit, however it really hurts that every jelly needs it unlike witches, who benefit based on race. Their key rune is Jellibrium Mindbender who is 91 nora with the optimal build of Aura3 + Commander. Its stats are 9 damage 6 speed 1-3 range 3 def 50 hp. In addition to this it has Jellibrium Mind, Psychic Magnetism, and Amphibious. His damage is awful and his bulk and speed are average. His range is great for what he is meant to do. The problem is that the best frontline tank for jellies, isn't that bulky, and is also the commander for jellies. Generally you want your Commander: X units to be backline units who will stay safe so you can keep the buff. This puts Mindbender into an odd situation, he is the tank for jellies and wants to take damage so that he can deal damage, but also wants to stay safe so other jellies can benefit from commander. With jellies having low hp, warbanner and commander are almost required to make them be able to fight. looking at Jellibrium Mindbender's ability costs, Jellebrium Mindbender is paying 57 nora for his stats. I can only assume that that 3 defense and 1-3 range are the problem. Solution: Give Mindbender back Deafening Aura in place of Commander Jellebrium. He needed it to compensate for his low attack damage and moderate durability. Reduce his range from 1-3 to 1-2 and reduce his defense from 3 to 2. The cost reductions and changes would give mindbender a role as a frontline tank and remove his weird support role in jellies. Jellebrium Lightbringer Lightbringer is the main support unit for Jellies. It has decent stats but has detection, illuminate, and burn, making it a powerful anti-stealth champion. It is a little expensive for its cost, and really doesn't bring much outside of support. Solution: Give it Boost: Jellebrium 2 to base of the form described in the Sok thread. +7 HP to allies of the same race within 5 range for about 8 nora. In exchange, reduce its range from 2-4 to 2-3 and reduce its attack to 7. The cost should end up being a reduction overall and put it around 70-75 nora. This change would make lightbringer into the support it seems like it is supposed to be, and give jellies the survivability they need for their passive to work. Jellebrium Skycaller This poor guy was ravaged by the revamp. He was Jellies main close range duelist but lost Nora Barrier, some damage, Chain Lightning, and Resistance Physical. He is meant to be alt damage for the mainly psychic based jellies, but has a horrible 2nd upgrade line for his role. The best attribute about Skycaller is the fact he has absorb. This means he has a little extra bulk to being one rounded, which is necessary when he has 0 def and 45 hp. His 2nd upgrade line is 3 ranks of damage shield electricity, which must be meant as a joke considering his bulk. Solution: Remove his horrible 2nd upgrade line, and give him Chain Lightning/Electricity Aura3/Bolt as his 3rd upgrade line. Chain Lightning is a flavor upgrade that fits the rune and allows for some def ignoring in a low damage race. Electricity Aura 3 fits in with the various other jellies who have aura abilities and also fits his range. Bolt has interesting synergy with Teleport and gives a little more mobility to a low bulk champion. Jellebrium Darkweaver This may be the biggest joke of all. With a cost of 70 Nora you might expect this rune to have some interesting stats or abilities. It doesn't. 6 Damage 6 Speed 4-6 Range 0 Defense and 38 HP makes you think it has some abilities that are causing it to be so expensive. However, this is not the case. With 0 Def and 38 HP, it has literally no defensive capabilities, yet has Shroud, Psychic Aura and Energy Thief. How the hell is something with 38 hp and 0 def supposed to take advantage of Psychic Aura or Energy thief, especially when it has 4-6 range. A champion with no bulk makes a horrible shroud champion, because it will just get ranged to death. The only redeeming quality of this run is Sands of Time which unfortunately makes it an autoinclude. Solution: Remove the Psychic Aura upgrade line and replace it with Impair Vision/Impairing Feedback/Evasive 2. This will give it an excuse for its horrible bulk by having it be a ranged manipulator which fits its image. Impair Vision removed from base and replaced with Sands of Time. Sands of Time upgrade is replaced with Vindictive. Energy Thief upgrade replaced with Telekinetic Thrust. Vindictive gives its 6 attack some use and combos well with Impair Vision. Impairing Feedback pairs well with Shroud. Telekinetic Thrust works well with Jellebrium Mindbender and gives some good combos with FS spells and relics. Coral Creeper I don't remember too well but I'm pretty sure this thing used to do something. I think it had transfer life. Right now this thing has vulnerability physical, and 2 upgrade lines with 2 abilities. It is acceptable in its current state due to its nice range, damage and attack, but suffers from just being a beater. Solution: Jellebrium Mind to base, remove Teleport from upgrade 1. Upgrade line 1 is now Regeneration 1/2/3. Given Coral's amazing regenerative capabilities, this makes sense and combos well with Jellebrium Mind. In addition, reduce defense by 2 to keep it cheap. Exstisplicer This thing used to have wizard foe and distract but is now stuck with the horrible upgrade line of Resistance Psychic 1/2/3. This really doesn't make sense on him considering he is meant to be an assassin of sorts. He is also stuck with Jellebrium Mind as an upgrade. Solution: Switch the places of Jellebrium Mind and Psychic Anguish. This is common sense because Jellebrium Mind requires the ability so he really doesn't help Jelly BGs unless he uses up his interesting upgrade line. First ability line to Stealth/Escape. Each of these makes sense based on its past role and stats and gives him some sort of defense considering his 0/47 bulk. Replace Subsume with Energy Thief. Conclusion Jellies need a lot of work. They are not even remotely viable, especially considering the current fatty rush style of play. Jellies aren't a theme that should be wanting to fight toe to toe, and currently their upgrades seem to want to do that. They have some of the worst fitting and worst upgrade lines in the game, as well as a racial that is not default on all jellies. Core abilities have been removed during the revamp and their costs were seemingly not adjusted to compensate. Jellies should be a theme similar to Witches and Disease where they want a long drawn out battle. As such, they have low damage and low bulk but need high utility. These changes will give them that utility, while keeping them low damage and low bulk. Their support spells, relics, and equipment are almost nonexistent, and their race is limited to 6 champions. Without dramatic changes to jellies, they are just a forgotten BG, even though they are one of the most original themes to date.
With Extispicer losing contaminate and neuromancer's psychic jab losing vulnerability: psychic, the theme is completely unrunnable. Those were two core components of the theme. Coral Creeper losing his signature ability (he sacrificed HP to give a jelly loyalty) further ruins the theme. Lots of problems with what was before a subpar theme and is now absolutely ruined.
Contaminate is somewhat still here with Psychic Anguish but that doesn't lower defense like poison. But yes, Losing the ability to amp up ouside of junk like firk mask hurts BAD when your average damage is 8. Just look at the versatility they had pre-revamp and compare it to their current state. Fun Fact: nobody even ran them pre revamp. http://archive.terhix.com/#!/race/39
yea no. Contaminate was a unique ability that enabled psychic dmg to poison champions granting a unique synergy between psychic dmg champions and anything in fs with surge poison. Poison dot is also a signature of FS faction a helpful dot that lowers dmg and defense enabling our low dmg low hp fs champs a better chance at surviving and killing. Psychic Anguish is nice I just think contaminate was really unique and I had some fun strategies involved with the ability. Please give it back don't be so silly as to dump psychic anguish on to everything and kill something as unique as contaminate. Sometimes I just (*facepalm) these guys and design changes on champs I love.
Coral Creeper used to nave Noble Sacrifice, which, for a health cost, would temporarily give a unit of the same race Loyalty (and could target itself). It also had Transfer Life 1 as an option, but Transfer Life 1 has always kind of sucked. But Noble Sacrifice was always thought well of, and it helped solidify the Jelly theme (and plants, for some reason). Anyway. While I do like that you're trying to improve Jellies in a general sense, I don't think there's a solid need to change the Creeper. In particular, the proposed change would make it far less inviting to non-Jelly BGs. Not only that, but it seems unlikely to help improve it for Jellies much. While Regen is nice, you're removing the DEF that would give it oomph, and with Vuln: Physical it's even more likely to get one-rounded (vulnerability is after DEF after all). Overall, for this rune in particular trading DEF for Regen seems like a bad change. At least not without giving it back some means of using health pro-actively such as Transfer Life or Noble Sacrifice, which would invariably raise it's cost, something you're trying to avoid. I think having Mind/Teleport as optional is quite nice, since it gives you a choice to run it regardless of Theme, but without sacrificing Theme synergies. It might no longer be a support/beater, but in the new Post-Revamp Pox Nora, that isn't all a bad thing, and having a single-minded unit can be efficient. I've some other thoughts regarding other runes, but I felt most strongly about this.
Creeper is the closest to being viable and probably could just get noble sacrifice as an upgrade slot 2 thing and work. I'll change that because you are right about vuln phys + the def loss.
alltough i didnt read everything i agree. Jellys used to be at least fun to play now theyre just boring and bad :<
