Here are my observations after a break: Skellies On the one hand - most variable in lategame theme now, could be split effectively with every faction. However early game is too damn boring. Drop tank->booster->cloak->lerper->DR->gg half of the time. Something needs to be done here. Zombies Pre-revamp they had very straightforward play - swarm stuff, then utilize corpses for any db you want. Now with everything summoned, it's all gone. You can still win of course, but what's the point? Spirits Still gаy stealth/incorporeal and nothing more. In theory there are lots of surgers and stuff, but in practice you still play stalling game. Vamps For a short period between seeker buff and the revamp, they finally had been a top tier theme with multiple builds in various factions. Now they are again high risk/low reward theme with "cool art" as main assset. UD/ is still viable of course, cause maso and echoes are still there, and UD still has some earlygame bleed champs. However in any other variant you are pretty much limited to bloodfiends and min-upgrade trackers as starting champs, and you really have to run dusks because of poor range on everything - that's extremely boring, on top of overcosted defenceless champs in general. Liches As a module they fit quite well into several themes. However as an actual lich-oriented bg they now neither have efficiency with cheap liches (that had been trending since striker release) nor good old reliable "rise" (cause servitors lost ranged attack, all second-life abilities are quite overcosted, and, once again, too much reliance on stupid dusky). Witches Now they finally have amazing mid/late game, however they have pretty bad earlygame. To start rolling they need decent draws, about 4 champs out, and likely 60 nora in the bank for the first mobi - cause the only all-around witch is inky - which costs too much - while all cheap witches have very strict specializations. Creeps Current racial is plain op, cause zone almost never decreases. However without that racial creeps won't make it, cause they are such a mess of arthropod/worm/undead/necrosis in all possible combinations. They realy need weaker racial, but more consistent champs - like they were pre-revamp. Stitched Dumbed-down with the revamp. Tripple-nerfed heroes, boring first, summoned riders, no more double-ally - in exchange for stupid shadowspawned recons, jabs, non-lumering tyrant and fat numerous stitchlings. Pre-revamp stitched as a module were fitting great everywhere, now you are better just to run a boring default bg. Paladins There's really almost no reason now to play split paladins over ff ones - vengers are simple grunts, undead maggy is not much different from a regular one, other fw pallys are gone, offensive-heal module is gone with nightbarbs change. I haven't tried clockwork-necrosis-spareparts yet though. Beasts Actually not bad. Except terrorize is pretty bugged, and ravenspeaker's birds appear with fixed 12hp - that means if you get one with boost and fw banner out, it has 1 hp base. It definitely wouldn't be gamebreaking to have 12 base - 23 with boost and banner is still less than myx/strux/kf beasts have. Clops It's amazing that we can now have ST champ in FW/SP, however zeven now is a poor shade of himself - 6 spd/no shielded on 120 nora champ is just stupid. Tortuns It's nice to get a second tort, but I failed to find a single unique synergy to try them. Dragons We got a new dragon, but that's it - all dragon synergy is still in SL, and the theme is just forced. Chops Loss of venger was a really big hit for chops. Technically witches and skellies have dark healing, but both themes are not really suitable for additional tempo hit, and dh, while good as an additional antihealing, still can't replace decay. Both soulcollectors are not really good for chops as well. So you are almost forced to run the skull and despoil, which both are even further tempo hit (and additional slots - real pain in splits). Also, new meta is all about cheap meaty champs, which doesn't help at all. Soultap It may seem that it's much easier now to apply soultap. And it is. However with backlash nerf, bad ability/stat choices for soulfeast champs, and already mentioned poor chop state - it's much harder to utilize that for anything. Death Benefit With almost everything summoned, I feel like we're now back to 2012 (but with raven and warlock nerfed), while all other themes are 3 years of powercreep ahead. Foul Rite For a short period between barbs switching from last breath to boons and the revamp, the theme was amazing because of most wide champ selection of all themes in pox. Now most IS humans are not humans anymore, and all efficient fuel sources are summons. Even if barbs still were humans, they are now all about unstoppable bers and nothing more. The theme is effectively dead. Charge Manipulation With add/remove/propogate charge gone, we have pretty much a single option with FS left. Also it seems that devs continue making same mistakes by nerfing whole charge mechanics instead of individual champs with abusive design. Relics Ok, we got atelier, catalysts, tombraider, etc - seems cool? Nah, relic-related abilities are now rare, spread across absolutely different themes, and in most cases - even on the same upgrade path. I have no idea how they want us to use it, cause it's a terrible mess. I haven't mentioned several other themes here (like fear, shrinehunt, etc) cause I've never been a fan of those. Feel free to unleash the flames.
Thank god. Don't you dare. =P Wait huh? Have you seen some of the more experienced players play Blox? The upper-level FW community has been messing with a ton of stuff recently, and a few people -- Yobanchi in particular -- have been making Blox looks OP at times. I'd love to see FW get more general tools that also have a home in Blox, but I think this BG plays alright. See thread Iron Triangle. Anthropomancer still struts his stuff, he's still hot poop. Death Ben is in a bit of a weird spot I'll grant ya, but viable? Heck yeah. Meet Graveyard. G L O B A L R E L I C B O Y S might actually work if they cost just a smidgen less and didn't crumble to hard counters.
Make usefull a summoned units, like more runes with "sacrifice summoned unit to" or make the sacrifice/destroy to apply to summoned units.
FW racial themes feel very bland and boring. Skeletons/liches/spirits/vampires are just leftovers that didnt survive the revamp and have no real synergy. Zombies are meat,cheap meat and more meat.I guess its alright if you like that playstyle. Witches are bunch of humans in toga/robes crutching on few boring curse interactions. Worms are about abusing necrosis which is sort of interesting,but crappy champions and the need for asspulls/luck can drain all the fun from playing it. Even if you survive early game and managed to setup a theme to work,its still outmatched in every way compared to any meta bg.
Well, I doubt there's anyone left aside of Yob with as much experience with FW as me, and I doubt there's anyone left at all with as much experience particularly in chops. Mairdreth with touch of vindrax (and other SL buffs situationally) is quite nice. Other FW dragons are not bad either, and, even though they don't have anything dragon-related themselves, they mix with SL dragons well. Pre-revamp FW/tortuns were good with damage-negation from dread/curse and/or chops. Now not really. Guardian lost his main combo with harpoon (hold the line -> pull stuff into his own dmz -> hit it with def strike -> get ap from exploit), but with AC@0ap he is still quite fine clops. Martyr is still a great way to get enough nora once he dies to deploy zeven. Whisperghast still pulls fat clops around like a boss. Moga still has ally. With yeti we finally can get complete aegis and ally on stormcaller. FW has wulfs, birds (including transforms), skelly-beasts with double-boost, and a self-healing doomball. Now we can also have ravenspeaker popping a bird per turn from skelly summons, and with augment/boost/banner you get quite dangerous birds. Anthro has nothing to do with db really. It should have been obvious, that eradicate is simply not an option for such champ. Any bg is viable to a certain extent, what really matters here — how interesting is it to play. Graveyard is not efficient at all. You take a tempo hit, risk skellies being destroyed prior to cast or gy itself destroyed before you get enough fuel, not to mention shrine damage. It's nothing in comparsion to getting bunch of real shades/skellies in one turn, attacking with them, then burning them (usually with couple of timmy's spawns to boot) while healing everything with martyrdrom. I'm not sure what global relics have to do with combat relics, aside of getting a discount from spires, but I definitely won't waste already tight slots on them.
Hey @LoganMkv Cool post i like it, i agree with you on certain topics like skellytoons and zumbeas, but i have a couple of questions. -Why do you say creepers were more consistent in the prevamp era? no one played them in that time . -You say that most of themes are "late game" like that is a bad thing, it has been like that since i've started playing FW. -How would you improve themes like liches, paladins and witches without making them "plz OP nurf" situation, because most of this problems are well known for the FW community, and some solutions were discussed before, but with zero response.
Well, I can't say that creeps were popular, but several people including myself were playing them without any troubles. What I mean by consistency — they all were mutants and all had creep. Pre-revamp stuff had more abilities, therefore much more options to drag any bad draw into a lategame. Now if you start with a defenceless or just unsuitable champ while going second, you are pretty much doomed in lots of cases. I'm well aware how devs never listen to our suggestions, but sometimes they do take a look at such threads, and rare miracles (with their own design) happen.
You did a good job explaining each theme and this was very well written. I hope the devs see this and I agree with most of what you wrote.
Reading this makes my heart sink. I came to this game back just after release and FW has always been my faction. All of our stuff doesn't seem to do much anymore. :/ oh well. I hope that the game continues to get better (albeit at a faster rate)
But I am a theme player, not a meta player. Zombies have always been my main BG and they are ok, not amazing.
worms, witches, zombie, stitched, and sprits are all pretty good or at least decent. FW still has a lot of problems with rune/ability cost but a few themes are decent.
2 players in the top 10 are using them. Just gotta build the bg right and use reconstruct a lot. I like ff UD stitched with augment creation on first. The damage bonus is fun.
Well that makes me feel a bit better then hopefully I get more time to play and get better with the bgs I have
Well, to win of course. I like zombs just how they are, summons are in a bad place but i believe that's something that is on the 'to do list'.
I would like to see FW Paladins become a thing using dead magic zone shenanigans and buffs, which would then translate into the champs being viable in a witch theme as well, giving some new strategies, synergies, and tactics so as to remove a lot of the monotony. Creeps are powerful right now but I don't think they are too bad in either direction. After watching zombie games a bit more, I think they are ok with the exception of the problem with summons. Other than that they are still good. Stitched are very singular and boring as far as composition. You almost always know exactly what is in the BG which doesn't leave any room for surprises. That said, I am impressed by the high level play. They seem very consistent as far as what they currently do. Skeles need some new flavor other than just boost and surge. Bleed/vamps could use some more viable ff options, but I feel as if they are really designed for split faction. Spirits I think are actually really cool with stealth and incorporeal shenanigans, I just think they need some "wow" champs and spells to really make them stand apart. The attrition decks (chops, db, etc) just need rebalanced costs. FW has always been a late game faction and that should never be a downside. Most of our themes lead into the late game very well and I think this just makes our faction a bit higher on the difficulty to play. I think our biggest issues are one ready know, being the cost of our champs, and the fact our themes don't have a lot of options. Should those two things change, I think we are in a good spot
Personally I'm a big fan of Skeletons and my BG works well in single player I mean I don't really play PvP at all I hate PvP in games so I try my best to not play it. I don't see anything wrong with Skeletons though I wish they would get more champs. I feel their 'Milk for Strong Bones' theme (using Altar of Bones to constantly kill a skeleton) works pretty well. I admit not been using them long but they work for me
