As someone who has never (and will never) buy an Avatar, even for free in-game gold, I can only speak from the perspective of a basic shrine-user. I find the whole idea stupid and a terrible decision on the part of whoever implemented them. For all the reasons stated above, plus the fact that they are just the most bland, generic, 'tank' champs that could possibly exist. They don't add any faction flavor, they don't have many unique abilities...they're basically just for looks. Except they get health and can walk around. T_T So dumb.
To be fair, shrines can walk around too, but if they have either something went wrong or the opponent doesn't know when to surrender.
An avatar and a warbanner is 5000 gold. You play a week of dailies and some games in campaign you have a shrine and warbanner for free. You need the warbanner anyway right. I have no problem if avatar leveling is removed (though they sped this way up from where it initially was), but saying avatars need to be removed completely is just kind of whining. You can accumulate all of them + the warbanners for free over time. I paid for all of mine. In a perfect world where pox had a bigger user base this would be a complete non-issue. New players would get matched with other new players who had no avs or low level avs as well. If you liked the game you'd get your free av and warbanner with gold. Keep playing. As you accumulate more runes you'd pick up other avs and warbanners with gold. After a while you'd have them all. Most games don't end from shrine/av death. New players generally aren't losing to more experienced players soley to av/shrine disparity.
The only real tangible disparity between a shrine and avatar is the 3 extra uses of scry that will occur every game. The random rarely used on transfigure effects come in at a distant second. Generally it only ever boils down to an avatar lets you get your whole rune dock revealed 1-2 turns faster though. And if you are fishing for THAT rune and the extra scry makes a difference then in reality its just that luck wasnt with you and your reveals.
The base shrine is 75 HP, my current avatar is 107 HP (32 above or 50% more hp) I was going double off the old 60HP shrines when I said double (which it was only what, 90% more, close enough) so it already is going in the right direction.
Wait, how does yours have 107? My avatar only has 93 hp. Edit: Oh, you mean post-transfigure HP. Yeah, that's not the same.
Im really not talking about balance. I never said they were unfair. If everyone had them automatically at max level, Id still hate them. Its just a matter of taste I guess, but to me, having your 'town center' get up and walk around is not just stupid but pointless. As others have pointed out, how often do players even get to that point anyway? IMO they are pointless and add nothing to the game.
