Cactuar Crate: Planar Disturbances

why must it be dragged out from you? why does stuff like this get brought up only when DMR, according to your words, "whines"? considering that you play predominantly one faction, you're at least expected to display some initiative when it comes to nerfing it. otherwise, what's the point of your input? buffing something is easy and fun -- we all love it and there's plenty of people outside of the council that provide their ideas on that, but the way I see it, it's very egoistic to shun the other side of the responsibility that you've took.

 

because i think there are things that are much more important than genesis lich at the moment. As well as the fact that genesis lich is the centre piece of 2 of the 3 most played decks in FW currently which is also the least played faction at the moment. so making a currently unnecessary adjustment risks even further damaging the playability of the faction as a whole.

 

Yeah. It's dangerous on melee because they need to get close to the opponent and risk their hide to get hits in whereas ranged units want to keep their distance so Slam serves as a situational burst kb damage increase, disruptor and gap maker.

 

I would argue the opposite. I think that Soul Siphon is actually the outlier ability that should be modified for consistency's sake. I have a problem with these kinds of hard caps because they contribute to pox's fundamental flaw: that the library of X000 abilities has been designed ad-hoc and many abilities have some unique catch that you have to memorize. Right now the difference between an OK player and a good one isn't that the good player has a better grasp on the fundamentals, but that the good player has a better grasp on the idiosyncrasies.

Soul siphon and vitality: creation are only two components in a larger system of scaling, and any modification to these two abilities could just as legitimately be applied to the following in a slippery slope:
Escalation
Non-pet summons
Nora generation
Fury/Violent
Replication
Swarm
Thirst for Battle
Inspire/Enhance Armor
Adaptive
Battle Leader
Warmonger
and several other offbeat combos like reapplying Verdant Promise, Foul Rite, Repurpose, or Staff of Ascendance.

Now, most of these abilities have been oppressively dominant at some time or other during pox's lifetime, but so have many other non-scaling abilities. And this form of scaling provides a very, very important thing that makes pox successful. It adds a second dynamic to the match that means that the person with the most fonts doesn't always win, and that every "standoff" situation has a winner and a loser so the game doesn't draw into eternity. Pox has 3 capped systems, and they are all capped for very clear, fundamental reasons: Shrine HP to ensure a game eventually ends, eliminating the idea of "infinite" value, AP storage to ensure that players actively use their champions and that games don't just end with a 30-tile shrinerush, and deck size to keep games consistent.

These three caps are enough, and pox's history has shown that anything "infinite" can be balanced through cost, rate, and duration. Ad-hoc caps just add an extra variable to program and memorize. Something should either stack or it shouldn't. Any problem that could be dealt with through a cap could be better dealt with through a tweak to the underlying numbers.

Aspect of growth creates "infinite" hp at a greater rate than any vitality: creation champ, but it doesn't see much play because the upfront cost isn't worth it. If you have a shatter champ, you can get free "infinite" HP from stacking bog pearls, but it doesn't see any play because the rate is too low. You can get "infinite" damage by tossing a 30n swamptouch amulet on any champ but, again, it doesn't see play because the upfront cost is too high.

If we take a look at the actual vitality: creation sources, I'm not convinced that vitality: creation, alone, is the source of the problem.

Primordial enigma: This thing is just massively streamlined around font-contesting efficiency: 7 speed, anti-range, and the tremor/nora-induction combo would be just as effective with regeneration or even no ability and a straight discount.

Arroyo riftlord: Creates 36hp in summons every 10 turns on top of the (max)20hp that vitality: creation makes in the same timeframe.

Genesis lich: Most often run with adaptive rather than vitality: creation on upgrade. Gets most of its value from the (massively) undercosted spirit harvest ability.

Xulos: It's Xulos.

Elsari culler: Remains a fringe champ even with vitality: creation.

Elder vampyre: Only viable through interaction with dark apprentice (external maxHP growth rate + regeneration). Trash outside of liches.

Bone circle staff: the ritual/swarm/summon/(RIP battle leader) triangle has defined the meta for the last two years. We know that the rituals are about to be nerfed into oblivion and BCS will become a fringe equip when it loses the immediate benefit of removing 20-50hp from the field for 3AP. As pure "infinite" hp growth, it becomes an inverse of lasher helm. Lasher helm, however, can take a champ off the field the turn it is played.

Back to Soul Siphon: If we make it proc only on enemy death and reduce the cost and maxHP cap, it would function perfectly in line with the rest of the game. Cost and rates.

 

I am aware of the other types of scaling and there's already infinite scaling in theory. My beef with this ability is how safe and easy to get value out of it is. Consider the following:

Then we have Vitality Creation, which benefits greatly greatly from something that in 99% of all games just happens: deployments and summons. Hell, it even counts itself on deploy. Soul Siphon has the advanced game requirement of real unit deaths and I just don't see how it's comparable to something like Vitality Creation. Going one by one, I think it's very clear that the nature of this specific scaling is very heavily tipped towards the user. This ability used to be 4 nora if you can believe that.

 

I'm not saying it's fine, I'm saying that there's nothing intrinsically unbalanceable about the ability that can't be dealt with through costs and rates.

 

Oh, I see. So you're saying caps should not exist altogether because costs, cooldowns and other stuff can manage them instead. How would you price VC then?

 

Also, Bulwark: X was tapped a while ago for its scaling potential and the HP buffs weren't permanent.

 

ah of course, I totally forgot that buffing Korsien is of grave importance.

 

wellll he doesnt even go on cooldown after he dies. so yeah he could use work

also the korsein thing is a meme

 

in terms of coding, do rider abilities work differently than death spawn?

 

IIRC each rider ability has its own code snippet and Korsien is the only one to glitch out like this.

 

correct he dies once & is never to return. Pretty sure there was an attempted fix at him going on CD after the 1st form dies but it was poorly done resulting in him not ever going on CD

 

If you deleted FW and ST from the game doubt anyone would miss it and players would be alot happier.

 

Don't bother with the suggestion for freeze in place it wouldn't get run like that anyway.

 

Would you take a look at Umbral Wulf again? I know he got reworked recently but he is basically a more expensive version of Utterdark Soulrender that can't take Initiative.

I feel like taking Phase Cleansing off of base is the answer, it's a nice ability but drives his cost up too much and forces his second upgrade line to be ethereal related stuff only. Not such a bad champ really but people just won't run him when Soulrender does the same thing better, even with the broken Homing Sense sandbag. It's also a pretty sweet sprite that i'd love to see in game a bit more.

 

So new stuff in the crate:

• Ice Stars - Frozen instead of Slowed
• X Stance goes to CD2
• Disbelief - On deploy kill a summon champion
• Shattered Summon - Kill a summoned champion within 5 spaces
• Vigilance - Removed because it's a mess of an ability

My notes about each:

a) Could Ice Stars be unable to stack? Right now you can cast it twice and the enemy will take 10 damage (pre-amp).
b) Good, but I'm not sure if that changes anything unless stances start their CDs upon moving.
c) Good, I guess it won't affect summoned relics anymore?
d) Same as c) - currently you can use it to destroy summoned relics.
e) This affects Dugon, Elven Taskmaster, Silverclan Hoplite and Voil Guard. What will they receive instead?

 

Fleshweaver Witch - Zombie Herder removed from base, U1: Zombie Herder, Coven, Consume

This is kind of silly, I'm glad you took on board my Consume suggestion but putting it on the same upgrade line as Zombie Herder means she will be equally useless as a healer in zombies as she is now. There is absolutely no reason to turn her into an option for witches, they have enough ranged options and already have a healer in Malefcia who is actually pretty good. Fleshweaver is a zombie rune, she always has been and this change will just push her further away from the theme.

If you were to put Transfer Life on base and replaced it with Consume on U2 then i can see it working but I'll never agree with the idea of shoving her into the witch theme. Unless you just don't want her healing in zombies?

 

every faction but fw

 

Soul Reaver.