Bloodbinder Servant [FW Human cheap Vamp support/meat]

Vampies seems to lack in both support and cheap meat category. One of the reasons for this might be the cost associated with abilities usually put on Vampyre champions (Life Siphon being the crown example). Thus an idea for a human "thrall" was born, more in a discussion on FW forums.

Bloodbinder Servant

Race: Human
Class: None
Rarity: Uncommon

Stats
DMG: 6
RNG: 1
SPD: 6
DEF: 0
HP: 55

Nora Cost: 40+2+5+2+6 = 55
(Using Altered Lemure as template for stats cost)


Upgrade Line 1
New ability, was looking at Sustain, Drain and Transfer Life for nora cost
Thrall (1) [Cooldown 1, AP 1, Nora 2] default
This unit loses 8 HP, a Blood Ball worth 8 HP is created at target adjacent space.

Thrall (2) [Cooldown 1, AP 1, Nora 4]
This unit loses 8 HP, a Blood Ball worth 12 HP is created at target adjacent space.


Upgrade Line 2
The choice here is between having more of a support champion, more of a combat capable champion.

Bodyguard [5 Nora] default
Target champion within 5 spaces is Bodyguarded (While this unit is within 5 spaces of the Bodyguarding unit, all damage dealt to this champion is prevented and is dealt to the Bodyguarding unit instead) for 6 turns. If this unit attacks, this effect is removed.

Surge: Vampyre [5 Nora]
This unit has +1 DMG for every friendly Vampyre.


Base

Attack: Psychic
This unit makes a Psychic attack at its Range. This is a basic attack.

Blood Frenzy (1) [2 Nora]
While this champion has less than half of its max HP remaining, it gets +2 DMG, and gains 1 additional rank of Multiattack (to a max of 3 ranks).

Motivate: Unholy [6 Nora] (Exists on Griefbearer's Fountain, reworded to include "other friendly", -1 Nora from Motivate: Everything)
All other friendly champions with Race: Demon or Race: Undead have +1 DMG.

 

My suggestions.

Its supposed to a be a cheap support champion for the vampires. So lets do away with the expensive abilities and stats that make it a fighter as well as driving up its price.
Change range to 1. Its a human slave for the vampires. Not a ranged fighter.
Lower damage to 6. Its weak from bloodloss.
Base ability: Remove Motivate Unholy, add Protect Vampire (See Protect Voil)
Upgrade Line 2 change to:
Motivate Unholy
Ally UD
Surge Vampire.

 

You meant Guarded: Voil?

 

No i mean Protect: Voil. The ability that gives the effect Guarded Voil

http://poxbase.com/#!/ability/1692

 

Ok, I'm confused.

Protect: Vampyre would make the Vampyre standing next to the Thrall not take damage. (Except the Thrall would also have to be a Vampyre if it was a carbon copy of Protect: Voil, but that's technicality that can be solved)
Guarded: Vampyre would make the Thrall standing next to the Vampyre not take damage.

Guarded makes sense to me in 'stay away from my food' way, I don't see how a weakling Human could protect a beefy Vampyre though.

 

It should proberly work the other way around to make sense, or be Body Guard instead. I´ll safe you master.

 

Dropped stats along with Altered Lemure, which makes the guy 6 nora lower.

Bodyguard makes more sense as then the champ is sacrificing itself. Put it in upgrades, I'd really want to keep Motivate base, and at this point it's pretty cheap anyway.

 

problem with bodyguard is it is just a far more effective version of Thrall.

No need to move your vamp or regain health turn by turn, just take his 55 health on a 1:1 ratio.

Also, for comparison with Thrall, Transfer Life is also 2 nora and that's a 10 for 10hp, non-race specific, direct heal. Thrall is dropping a blood ball that only heals two races and needs to be actively picked up. For one nora more than Thrall 2, Transfer Life 2 is a 7hp lost to 14hp gain direct heal.

Thrall currently seems very weak in comparison to other abilities.

 

I agree with regards to Bodyguard kind of doing the same thing Thrall does, I included it on the champion since it has the ability to prevent a Vamp from being one-rounded. In general self-healing on vampyres gives them good sustain, but they are vulnerable to just getting nuked.

On point of Thrall being weak - first, I'd rather propose a weak ability and have it brought up than propose something OP . The point that the heal is race specific is kind of moot since the champion is meant to be run in a race specific deck. Blood Balls provide vampiric healing, which means the rank 2 can potentially heal for 18, or 24 if Greater Vampirism gets fixed. Then you also have Relocate: Blood Ball, which while only present on two Vamps (and one doesn't really fit too well into the theme), it does open some gameplay options.

Having said all that, I'm by no means going to defend this particular incarnation of the ability till death, the mechanic of dropping a Blood Ball seemed to have some support on FW forums, but given the champion is relatively weak on it's own in it's current incarnation, and having Bodyguard makes it serve it's purpose pretty well, might change the ability to something along the lines of:

Wouldn't really make sense to have ranks at this point though.

 

That ability sounds more interesting and would likely get more use ^^

I also wouldn't cost abilities based on Greater Vampirism. The ability should be efficient for what it is in its own right. That's the point of synergy. I think G.Vamp would be better staying where it is though, or we will end up with everything being nerfed around it.

One ability I might suggest is Propagate: Blood Ball (on top of the Thrall ability). Would certainly help with relocations and give the enemy a reason to not attack the thrall. Although, maybe in keeping with blood balls, he can only spawn 1 ball at a time that lasts 2 turns or something?

 

KISS
I dont think there is any need for a more complicated (in coding and using) ability for Thrall.
Let thralls be thralls for the entire game and the Vampires be created outside the game.

Spawning Bloodballs or letting Vampires drink from him should be sufficient (without the turn into vampire thing)

 

I can agree on the turning bit. Mostly due to how it would affect the cost.

 

Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler .

That said, there is a reason why I went with just dropping blood balls and not fancy 'make it do everything' kind of ability, even if it's cool theme wise with all the whistles and stuff.

@Fikule - I'm afraid we won't escape balancing things without keeping Greater Vampirism in mind, balancing things in void is just a bad idea in general. I also agree that Greater Vampirism should remain at 50% for that reason.

 

Well yes, but if we are having to balance vampires around greater vampirism then we'd be better off not having it at all. Otherwise, any time you don't have it in play, you are playing inefficiently.

In some cases balancing in a void is certainly a bad idea. But when many abilities are too powerful because of one ability, do you fix all the other abilities, or the one that makes them too powerful? In the end you would have the abilities working the same as they used to, but only if greater vampirism was in play.

My preference would be to make Greater Vampirism an amp and spread it out a bit more, so 50% becomes the best case scenario.

Greater Vampirism
Vampiric Healing is increased by 10% (up to 50%).

As an aside, why don't all amp abilities clarify they cap at 50%? not very intuitive for new players ^^

 

Sure, but I don't really think that Thrall as it is in my OP is inefficient. 5 Nora for rank 2 might be much, going to drop that to 4, but that's a difference that doesn't make or break the champion, or the ability itself.

+1 to both of these.

Edit: 10% stacking would be an overkill, I'd think 25% stacking twice would be sufficient. Damage and healing amps scale and are costed differently, as can be demonstrated on:

http://poxbase.com/#!/relic/11
vs
http://poxbase.com/#!/relic/146

Edit 2: note to self - stop posting links to local dev version of PoxBase .

 

I think you are right that the ability can work as is. For more utility, you could extend it to 1-3 spaces instead of adjacent. It would give him better placement options, especially if he is engaged.

Also, madness is nice, but have you considered Blood Frenzy rank 1 (ironically no vamp has this ability). Would make him 1 nora cheaper and has synergy with him losing health.

Blood Frenzy
2 Nora
Rank 1
While this champion has less than half of its max HP remaining, it gets +2 DMG, and gains 1 additional rank of Multiattack (to a max of 3 ranks).

 

I was thinking about Tormented (and why the hell does Tormented cost as much as Blood Frenzy 2 when the latter is so much better...), but with such low base damage and Bodyguard being an incentive to not make attacks with it, I'm not sure it's really needed.

 

To be fair, Blood Frenzy would scale incredibly if they chose the Surge: Vampyre upgrade path. Bumping the damage even more and granting multi-attack.

Would kind of represent the thrall going mad in a more effective, psychotic way than just having Madness does ^^

 

Aight, that's not a bad line of thinking. Dropped price on Thrall (2) to 4 Nora, Blood Frenzy (1) replaced Madness on base and removed Bloodtracker from upgrades - don't think champions in sub 60 nora range really have to have 3 upgrades to chose from, and the way it's fleshed out now I don't think anyone would take it anyway.

Also changed class from Priest to None.

 

Looks good to me, clear support/defense option, clear berserker damage option.

Can also be run effectively in Demons.

Any idea if he is ff or split?