I've recently started playing again (last expansion I was here for was Coalitions), and I've always liked the Deep Elves. Any suggestions? Partially inspired by Agirgis1's UD videos and Gutsa's punish/cull BG on the forums. What upgrade on the second line should I use for Deep Elf Fanatics? I like Essence Capture over Call to Arms because it procs on Manic attacks (and doesn't for Call to Arms), however, this puts him at 80 nora cost. I had Servile Brutes in place of the Demon Liches, but then I realized that I didn't have any magic damage sources. Other sources of Attack: Magical that I considered were Deep Elf Ritualist and Nefari Messenger, but they all cost around the same nora. Posts everywhere praising Nefari Griefbearer, so I stuck one in. Not really sure how to use him. Shatter Summons or Drudgery? With Nexus Aura? Is Shadowrake any good? I read Deep Elf Priestess sucks now, and Nefari Informant is the new relocate support. Is it worth extra 5 nora for Trickster since he's already pretty cheap? I'm considering it because Relocate: Ally needs to be cast while adjacent to an enemy and could put the ally on the other side of the Informant (so basically the Informant is between the relocated ally and the enemy). Stealthing would disengage and allow me to move Informant out of the way, saving AP. So I hear people really, really love Boundless Enthusiasm, Drain Vitality, and Mandate from Sheoul. Is Maddening Echoes still good, or are there better damage spells? Would someone get triggered if I used Fire Blast? I originally had put in Mindslicer Boomerangs and Split Personality in place of Orb of Protection, but thought an AoE might be better. I read about the Seism ability basically replacing Demolish, but Siege Monger isn't in theme...
It really depends on what you want to go for, if you prefer only Deep Elves over other races, I'd maybe choose Call to Arms (at least until it gets nerfed to have a stack cap, which will likely be soon). If you decide to have non-Deep Elves I'd go with Essence Capture. Again, it kinda depends. Demon Liches and Nefari Messenger both bring more utility, which is good, but Ritualist brings a LOT more damage and can survive longer. Personally I'd stick with the Liches, make sure you have Cleansing Flame on their upgrades, and then Swarm: Deep-Elf Skeleton to get some more meat onto the field. His Dispel and Relieve are amazing to have on a single champ (rather sickening to fight against him, he's way too efficient to be ignored). He also would allow you take something other than Cleansing Flame on your Demon Liches. Nexus Aura for sure, Shatter Summons only if you feel you'll have trouble against massed summons. I'd only stick him in if you really need more alt damage. He's good, but he still kinda has a niche. I don't do Deep Elves often, but I still see Deep Elf Priestess used, whether or not she sucks. She's better at dealing some damage than Informer, but Informer is much cheaper even with Trickster. I'd take one of each and see which you like more. Homing Sense is op for UD. Abuse it as much as you can till it gets taken away or something dumb. Drain Vitality is good for dealing with super champs, though I honestly prefer Exile due to permanency, but I'm weird and I'd suggest you stick with DV. Mandate is great for making a super champ of your own. It's honestly kinda ridiculous how good it is. Only use Fireblast if you feel the need for extra fire damage for Orb. (I like Fireblast, that's a lot of reliable damage right there). Maddening Echoes is still very good, though maybe not 2x auto. Orb is best used if you have lots of Fire damage to keep it around (though its still good without fire dmg). I prefer Breath of Ash, but the end animation is still currently slow as firk. People still use Mindslicer Boomerangs just for the damage, Split Personality isn't used very much as far as I can see. I would use Siegemonger if you dropped most of your relics, but to keep it in theme you should stick with Demolish.
Thanks for your input! I don't really understand this reasoning. Deep elves have both races Demon and Elf, so Call to Arms would work with Deep Elves and non-elf Demons, which is like 90% 58% (133/224) of UD champions anyways. Hmm, I haven't really tried using Swarm: Deep-Elf Skeleton; was running with Fire Acolyte so they'd be 2 nora cheaper. It sounds really interesting, but I wasn't sure if it was worth it, although, to be honest, Fire Acolyte and Fire Eater are pretty mediocre in a Deep Elf BG. I also like them for their Amplify Fire because I have a lot of Fire damage sources with Chosens of Osarius, Grimlic, and Nefari Fireslingers, which is also really nice with the Orb of Protection like you said. What upgrades would you run on Deep Elf Ritualist? Well, maybe it's not that she sucks, but rather she's worse than Deep Elf Infiltrator and Nefari Informant ever since Relocate: Demon was nerfed to cooldown 3. Call of the Hunter is a cooldown 2. — Also, how necessary would a form of equipment shatter be? I would go with Deep Elf Scout's Pilfer or just the Shatter spell, but I'm not sure what I would give up to fit it in.
Well, griefbearer is really good and cool (good in battle, cool looks and design) and is a swiss army knife. He has defense (aura), dispel, cleanse, good range and damage. Doesn't need that much spell support to be a threat, but it's a matter of playstyle. shatter summoned + nexus aura build is best. about fanatic: Essence capture>Call to arms. He will usually have around 18 dmg anyways, so you will get 6 nora per attack. so if you hit twice, which is the least he usually does, you'll pay 5 more nora to get 12 back instead of virtual 4 with cheaper build. Also essence capture works with pounce from boundless enth. Call to arms on the other hand has its upside: his cost is equal to 75 which will let you deploy two good melee units first two turns. Chosen of osarius with most optimal build is 72-75 and heretic is also 75 or less without punishing aura no matter how you build him. That will let you deploy two of those guys if you start first and have to start with a combination of those 3. I'm currently working on a good deep elf deck using fire dancers (also one of the best deep elves) and familiars (which I'm on a quest of abusing right now), where fire blast really shines and I find much more interesting synergies and combos. I'm not posting my bg unless I'm 100% it's what I'm looking for, but it's mostly fire themed and seems much better than most of the bgs. Also when people play them they put 2 nefari resurrections and 2 mind storms from what I've seen.
Well, yes, but I also prefer Essence Capture because it's more versatile (doesn't need to be used for only champs!). Fire Amp is likely what you want then. Probably Blood Magic and then either Hex 1 or Pawn (the extra damage for Hex 2 isn't necessary, its use is mainly just some ranged harass and damage reduction, and Pawn just helps to be super tanky). Oh, I forgot about the cooldown change. Good point. Hmm... I'd switch out Demolish for Shatter. Shatter is more important to have imo than relic hard-counters (because you can attack relics, but not equipments, and some equipments will stop you from attacking the champion itself).
@SireofSuns always pack a shatter @IronStylus you are a brave man! What do you see in the fire dancer?
I'm currently leaning toward Drudgery for Griefbearer. Haven't had a chance to try out Demon Liches' Swarm: Deep-Elf Skeleton yet, but I think it procs on summons, so Shatter Summons could potentially be counter productive. Also, Drudgery can be seen as a pseudo tanking ability, since after you use it, each of the enemy is pretty much guaranteed to only be able to attack you once at most, unless they have some kind of AP generation or enough ranks of Multiattack for their speed. This was also along the lines what I was thinking. I did not know Essence Capture works with pounce; I'll keep that in mind. However, I don't really like deploying Fanatic early, since Manic could make it somewhat tricky to capture fonts. Heretic Overlord is really nice after opponent's first deploy since Heretic Shackle's Weighty could potentially slow down the capture of their first font. Yes, what about Fire Dancer make her so great? Is it her Weaken Spells or Fascinate? Also, how does one generally deal with facing a fire BG with a fire BG when everything has Fire Eater and Immunity: Fire? I have a lot of fire damage in this BG too and I struggled a bit when I wasn't drawing my physical damage dealers. Yea, you can see them in Gutsa's BG that I linked in first post. Mindstorm's AP removal combos nicely with the Cull granted from Nefari Resurrections. I don't know if I specifically want to play around just that though. Gutsa also runs two Nefari Griefsingers for additional AP removal through her Wail of Grief ability and Hekatian Voidrakers as another source of Punish. Split Personality kind combos since after the first attack, they probably won't use AP for another attack, allowing you to punish with Punish. So, I'm currently using Heretic Overlord with Imposing Aura since it gives the potential to proc Cull on multiple units around him via other units as well, rather than having to ping two different units with 8 AP first.
Agreed, I think I will go with Essence Capture after all. Um, Amplify Fire is on base? Really good point; I haven't thought of that.
Vothsair Monstrosity will work well with your cull theme. Adjacent champs become careless. And he even looks like an elf who has been going to the gym, has grown extra arms, and imbibed a Potion of a Giant Size...
Fire Dancer: although she has 5 speed, she's a really good 'tank' and duelist, well at least on a champion you'd focus first, brings aura, has some dmg (small) and is cheap. she's not for rushing, but deploy her if you need to face something small that could potentially win the duel with a damaging spell. in the fight she shines mostly with deflect and fascinate. there is a good combo for her - maddechoes - like somedoby said earlier on the forums in combo thread. She pulls guys to her, she weakens spells on her and it's really easy to use this spell efficiently. But I didn't test it myself, it should work though. Oh and she has blind. One the things that might punish her is something like purge, which will both dispel deflect and cure blindness, but it costs 50 nora, so she's good. About shatter - I never used it in any UD bg until now that i faced KF with this meta fire eater equip and a guy that used two molten cloaks. I might also consider FR for the first time in my life to fight fire eaters. I keep finding uses for this spell actually as a really situational rune. I'm not sure how my bg will work against a fire eater deck, but nobody plays that anyways. About demolish - it's an auto include and best spell for UD ever. It doesn't stop your tempo if you're not stalling, gets rid of grim well and saves your high valuable AP. I don't usually focus relics in my games until it's the last thing a champion can do or I have nothing to do with it. If you're rushing, it's a must have. 1x always auto included. I don't know what to think of shadowrake; his 8 speed does really well and his main strenght is lesser shadowrake. If opponent fails to kill him while he just killed the lesser one, another will spawn, making his life harder, but I'm not convinced that's really strong. The other abilities are rather a less important additions. stasis doesnt hurt much, though, because the turn he can move he has 12 ap. I could post my bg I was playing today with, but it's not finished and a bit messy - for example i put in stuff I needed to counter a guy Iwas playing couple times.
Fading Recollection is amazing for neutralizing champs that have key abilities, it's only stopped by warding and the like. It doesn't even need to be used on a big tanky guy, you could use it on say, Deep Leviathan to prevent Cataclysm. (Hehe, that was too good)
@IronStylus i find this type of discussion really interesting. I ran FR, Shatter and Demolish in every UD BG for a LOOOOOOONG time. Now I never run FR, always run shatter and run Siege Monger. For my play style, it's a way more effective selection.
To be fair, FR is kinda a newb spell in a similar vein to Doom. It isn't the most effective means for doing things, but it gets the job done and helps you deal with things you otherwise are at a loss against.
I've always thought that people considered Fading Recollection a staple in UD BGs for a really long time, so I've always put one in. At least in the past anyways. [Insert pun about fading recollection here.]
Easy, you discovered X spell that is more efficient and/or actually kills things. But of course, UD spells REALLY should all be support based spells, and their champs are relied on to kill things, just kinda makes sense to me, but I'm more used to FW and SP.
Am I wrong to think that UD spells are supposed to support their champs' killing capability? I know some people rely on the UD spells as finishers.
