Arctic Gift

what's going on. i have never seen arctic gift played for over a month. did someone pull out a winning bg?

my 2 cents
too situational in that you need it to come out before your champs in a split otherwise you'll debuff yourself

it costs to get it out of the gate which is valuable nora at the start of a game

it takes 2 turns to get out of the ice so it means that ready triggers only once since a FF would trig on base anyways for arctic champs

 

nah it's a garbage spell most of the time i assume someone lost and just wanted to kick up a fuss.

regardless it does allow us to make some changes to st and open up some design space ^^

 

i would like to see terrain generators changed, maybe double the speed that it moves across the map

 

the idea of ice generator is nice but it takes really long to have it in a safe spot and get large enough to become useful

like the idea of all the jakeies and beasties staying on the ice from the generator and creeping slowly like the glacier is expanding

 

AG is fine, to aquire domain buffs u need to generate snow or ice.
its cheap spell but its ok.

 

This is a pseudo nerf arctic thread now

 

I didnt mind reading it all, nerfing arctic threads has been created for ages.

 

really ?????
i never understood all this ST hate . i have always played ST and i never understood why all the other factions hate us soo much , i mean really . is it because we have a lot of AoE ? or that we have our own alternative damage type ? or is it that we have arctic , which is a thing that most of the time simply works like the IS font bonus .

i feel like most of the time is just simple hate .

in what this spell is concerned it is balanced , although it could not proc on summons. the spell is 25 nora just to give domain snow and some ice blocks , i honestly only run it on my bg becuase it easily pumps my heretics and ancestors

 

I haven't lost to it. I don't play PvP really. This just a thread for me to play Devils Advocate. Constructive feedback. Let it be unleashed.

 

Arctic's ready bonus is one of the most overrated things in the game for any situation except for the inital deploy ap

 

Agreed, its great for the extra ap on deploy!

 

it's not bad in alot of other situations, but I won't miss it if it's removed, maybe we could then get some 7 speed champs in the faction lol

so many have had 7 speed on release and stripped down to 6 because of arctic

 

Noone understand this.

 

I do, he means that someone of our champs had 7 base speed to start, but then we got ready from arctic and 8 ap deploy is to high, so they got dropped to 6.

 

Updated main post with a suggested change.

 

This thread is a gem because no ST hater came here, and for that I am grateful.

Anyways, I feel I'm the only player running arctic gift in FF ST, and my feeling is that in a BG that relies heavily on summons/swarms you need 2 arctic gifts as it is. It is the only reliable terrain gen for st right now, but if I leave my zealotry aside I'll have to say it gives a lot for its cost: Ice veil: 5 nora; Arctic: 2 nora; Domain: snow: 4 nora. If you use ultra advanced math you'll see AC gives all that for 5 nora per champion.

But I'm not entirely sure it is OP considering it's a slot you lose just for that, and as many people above me have stated, the problem is the ice debuff plus ready, or maybe just ready.

I run it exclusively for the terrain gen as it's crucial for some champions I run, it feels enjoyable using certain mechanics and seeing them work while most people just ignore them, and to make it clearer, it's not because of ready.

 

I'm not sure how I missed this, but I noticed you direct attention to it in the Q&A thread.

After reading your concerns, these seem to be your core problems with Arctic Gift:

• Arctic is situationally strong with Ready (+1 vs -1 from ice)
  
• Summons/Swarms shouldn't trigger it (mid font battles)

Lushiris touches on the most important aspect of the spell: it's often not worth the two slots you must use for it to be reliable. Furthermore, it's not nearly as efficient as you think as playing it turn 1 can prevent a turn 2 deploy if you don't have a cheap champ revealed. That 5N per champ is being paid up front and is often a tempo hit.

You gain multiple abilities for roughly half price but pay for it in a lump sum that restricts early deploy options.

I used Arctic Gift with Ferren (which I'd play if the weren't ruined) because they were cheap enough for me to get away with it. It was also the only way for me to utilize Hidden: Arctic effectively as I couldn't generate terrain properly without abandoning a Ferren core. Lushiris is dead on when he says Arctic Gift is "the only [semi-]reliable terrain gen for ST right now."

If we change this spell, I'd suggest multiple buffs and nerfs:

• Give it preordained (players could run one but may run two in case of counterspells)
  
• Change Ice Veil to Snow Veil (non-impeding snow)
  
• Remove Ready from Arctic (per several other threads)

This removes all speed components of the spell, makes it easier to use and addresses what I consider to be your underlying issues.

 

Also a lovely list of changes.

 

Moved to trash at request of OP.