Poison resistance was removed few patches ago from boon and no one complained,but its time to tear this bandaid off.Not slowly peeling it off but fast and in one move. TEAR DOWN THIS SANDBAG MR. CACTUS. @Sokolov The reason for removal of boon is quite simple,to open up design space for various themes(both inside and outside FW,as was the case with poison for example),as well as removing a faction wide sandbag. Boon of the Undead should be removed,but race:Undead should stay.This is because many undead are just undead,rather then zombies,skeletons,spirits or liches.It will also keep various abilities/spells/relics/equipment that triggers off undead functioning and unaffected by this change,such as Sacrificial Altar or Reflesh.Thus removing boon will not be affecting anything outside the costing and ability itself. I understand that skeletons,an undead theme within FW,are considered overpowered currently and this can be seen as a buff to all undead,and thus to skeletons,which are already more then strong.I do believe skeletons should be adressed along with boon to prevent them from being too broken. About boon itself,let us analyze what it is: This champion has Immunity: Disease and Fearless. When this champion recovers a nora globe, you gain an additional 20% nora. (4 nora) I will start with fearless.While faction wide fearless is nice,removing it would help all champions with fear abilities.It would also help yetis develope as a theme,much like removal of poison resistance helped FS poison theme.I believe @Lushiris can tell us more about the yetis if needed. Onto immunity:disease.The only theme within FW which consistenly uses disease aoes/auras is zombies.As such zombies should be given some kind of ability to protect them from disease.It could be disease immunity,disease eater,or an idea i love most:an ability which prevents disease damage from friendly sources(but not from enemy).Perhaps it should be applied to all former boon champions? Removal of disease immunity would help mirror matches between FW a lot. There is a number of spells/relics/equipment which deal disease damage which should be adjusted as well,but its only a small number and i believe those changes can be made easily and without too much impact. Last and least,is the bonus nora from globe.I heard some people claim that boon is not a sandbag,but a benefit for FW.I heard from some people that this bonus offers good nora gen.Those people are not good with math.I will elaborate why,the following text and math is copied from an thread in FW forums,all credit goes to @kalasle "Lets say the nora return costs 1 nora. I'll keep the champion costs and numbers rough to make the math rounder, but it should approximate a game well enough. If a FW player deploys 6 champs, as does the opponent, and 4 of each of those champions die, there will be 8 total nora globes on the field. Making an aggressive estimate and saying the FW player collects 75% of those globes, and that every champion was a 100 nora champion, the FW player has just yielded a mighty 18 nora over the course of the game, in exchange for 6 nora total on their champions. 12 nora is an alright amount, but that is not generation. If a FW player deploys, instead, 6 champions costing 66 nora each and 4 champions costing 100 nora, with the opponent doing the same, they are paying 10 nora for the boon-nora bonus. If all but one of the cheap and expensive champions on either side die, there are 16 globes on the field. Again with the FW player collecting 75% of the globes from both the smaller and larger champions, the FW player has just payed 10 nora for a return of ~(10*2*.75+6*3*.75) or 28.5 nora. Over the course of an entire, lengthy game, boon has just generated a mighty 18 nora. The number and payoff ratio becomes worse if the FW is deploying a larger portion of the champions, if they deploy fewer high-cost champions, and if they fail to collect three quarters of the globes. Unless the nora benefit from boon is considered absolutely free, its return could very well be negative over the course of a game; that's assuming the player is getting value from the other components of Boon on their champions." Thats about it for boon. Various FW themes(spirits,liches,vampyres,worms,witches,skeletons,zombies) are ready for more development and growth(some more then other) and removal of boon would be a step in the right direction. Any comment or argument is welcomed,either for or against.However it should be atleast a little bit constructive and intelligent.Please refrain from mindless faction zealotry or faction hate that FW seems to cause from traumatizing players with its playstyle.
I would miss the disease immunity in some cases, but for the most part I agree as a FW player. The Fearless and nora-globe parts of boon feel additionally frustrating, because the FW player almost never notices either. The globe bonus interacts with an already nebulous and variable system, in a way that tweaks numbers within that system -- numbers that both players likely don't know in the first place. It's either invisible power or a substance-less sandbag. However either of those affect balance, they're emotionally frustrating as a player. Fearless makes an obvious impact on the game a bit more, but also triggers far less, and when it does change something, that's often a preventative change. Competent opponents will pass up using their fear effects, rather than run them into an immunity. Both of those components of boon do little to make the ability worth 4 nora, while also doing little to make the ability feel like it's worth having. So yes, agreed, remove Boon and followup with tweaks.
I am not an FW player. I actually kind of hate FW, but this seems like a good change to me, and would help the people who like FW and would like to see it develop as a faction. So dooo eeeet.
I dont think skeletons are broken just because Tiny and Devils are running them. They are strong for sure but they dont need a nerf and have a tough time with any of the myriad antisummon effects and swarm. Broken is a word that is bandied about too often, it no longer holds any weight because any theme or rune or deck people loose to becomes broken in their minds and forum posts. I think the balance of the game is in a great place right now and im not sure boon is a big enough of a sandbag to warrant immediate fixing
Its been planned for long time but never done and it would be an amazing step for FW as whole,not just as a removal of sandbag and a old obsolete ability,but for opening design space for themes.While it is true that its not urgent,i do believe there should be development and changes for things which are not just urgent.Its time to take a brave step foward.
A faction wide +4 nora is a giant sandbag. That's -- do you know how much 4 nora is? On all the champions save for 2 narrow themes? Imagine if a single faction got those basic attack cost increases twice over, and no other faction got that. Taking it off might make FW too good, that's nuts. I seriously think it should come off, and then all affected units get a temporary +2 mod or something similar, to make it function in stage.
I've never liked so many posts in one thread. It's great having serious a discussion without any kind of flaming and trolling. Firstly I'll comment about what was required of me by @Netherzen : playing yetis against undead has always been an issue, even when they weren't fear focused, because "slow" bulky champions are FW's favorite target. Against fear with Yetis, you simply lose any kind of efficiency - which in fact yetis don't have at all as of now IMO - and have a BG with several "pseudo-FR'ed" yetis. No form of fear working also means Psychological Warfare becomes useless, which for example makes Yeti shaman an Attack: magical champion with swap 1 against FW, for 78 nora. I'm currently suggesting ways to make yetis at least playable, but surely it will never be enough against Fear Immunity. On a side note, @TheBulwark justposted before me and I'll reply: The problem with boon is similar to the extinct abilities Construct Immunities and Elemental Fortitude: yes they offer advantages, but simply put it's high risk high gain; if you're fighting yetis or FW with disease, boon is useful. But against everything else, you only make use of the globe bonus. It's a big issue when each one of your champions has that. About the topic, @Sokolov has discussed with us about FW bonus. Right now I think it to be hard to discuss Boon without thinking of the Faction Bonus, because by removing Boon - despite all I just said to Bulwark - FW will become slightly weaker, and thus more dependent on its bonus with cheap champion spam( less nora is less nora, even if not noticed). He has given some great ideas regarding Boon and FW races( if you guys want to know it has to be through him lol), and I think FW may benefit from more diversity. The bonus still remains a problem, because making a bonus that benefits the whole faction without being broken is no easy feat. I honestly believe this thread needs to receive a lot of attention from the community, because the eventual changes of Boon and FW bonus will pretty much "revamp" FW and the way it's played. Also @Netherzen , for the sake of the discussion, would you please change your thread's name to "Boon of the Undead and FW Faction Bonus"? Although it may not be much, I really want to see this thoroughly brainstormed.
Actually,i want this thread and discussion to be about boon alone and not to involve the faction bonus and i will explain why. I believe boon can be changed without touching the races and faction bonus.Thus it will likely to be done much faster. Secondly,every single discussion about FW bonus(there were several huge threads in FW forums about this)always ends up people suggesting a dozen of different things and not agreeing on anything. I really feel that isolating boon and dealing with it alone is needed,as a first step.Following that first step,the faction bonus,races and themes within FW can start to change.
Aside from Zombies probably needing Immunity: Disease or Disease Eater, I think you are right in that we could probably handle Boon on its own. Most FW players seem comfortable losing the benefits here for the nora adjustment.
highly unlikely, expect more fw nerfs by midterm. There is no hope for this faction, imo. Try another faction, maybe IS.
Removal of Boon entirely means a -4 nora on each undead champion and -1 ability from base (or in some instances from upgrades). In the majority of cases this will pretty much be unnoticeable and probably perceived as a little bit stronger. Only possible candidates I could see as becoming problematic may be some of the cheaper champions that have large nora modifiers. A more synergistic issue would be a few spells that become counter productive unless zombies gain disease eater as their replacement. This will certainly help give a home to the numerous spells/auras that deal disease damage and not make them useless. Think stuff like infectious or death's touch screwing you over now but with zombies having eater they get a home and you can avoid having to make those adjustments. Will also help avoid making the super cheap zombies too cheap. The rest of the themes I say give them the -4 nora and see how they go. Add theme related abilities down the line or something when a theme needs a little revamping.
the problem i have with theme is that they might be much more costly and might drag some of the champions down by having additional cost Example spirits may have a phase shift theme based ability but some of the champions do not currently have any phase ability like shadestriker which might not fit
