Dark rising + Plague was the first combo I ever pulled off when I played Pox. The spells were a lot more broken then and disease suffered from a lot less headaches. After hearing the latest Q and A I thought I would write up a much bigger breakdown on Disease damage problems while skirting the much bigger problem of mirror match damage being obsolete (ST vs ST etc). After the problems are fleshed out we can start a section on solutions focused around the disease damage type. First issue: Disease damage is not a disease deck problem, but a Zombie problem. Zombies interact with and use 95% of any disease related ability. Much like how skeletons get lower stats because of boost, zombies were given lower attack damage and speed because disease could spread much faster than other dots, and the extra damage was gained from applying disease and compound auras. Zombie and disease are nigh inseparable and benefit from or are punished by this fact. Second Issue: There are far more counters for disease than any other damage type. Easy ones to pick are FW faction bonus and IS constructs. FW just boons everything and if it doesn’t have boon it will usually have an immunity disease upgrade. The same applies to construct immunities. IS medic can render any unit immune to disease damage for 5 turns. IS has ample cleanse while FW has a terrible time making debuffs stick. IS could be said to be in the same boat as FW for 100% immunity. A secondary problem outside of immunity comes from a faction’s ability to cripple zombie movement through terrain. Disease already requires close proximity to spread and do damage effectively but when the slowest units are slowed more neither of those become a manageable outcome. In the big picture it only feels like Disease damage is at full effect vs UD, SP, KF, and SL. Third Issue: Disease is the weakest damage type with the most situational effect. Inhibit is only useful some of the time. Anti-healing is nice but the sticking power and the usefulness vary a lot more than something like defense reduction. Mass inhibit/disease applicators such as fester wounds are also usually double edged swords instead of just being a pure positive. Fourth Issue: Disease has poor amp and not enough units/ relics to vary how you obtain the amped damage. Fifth Issue: Attack Disease is a much worse skirmisher without the discount. I feel it is almost a death sentence on a champion to give them Attack: Disease. It was certainly uncalled for on collection of souls. Wrap up: Zombies suffer as a core FW theme because disease under performs. It is not alt damage it is the compensation for the way zombies were designed. Disease damage is hard countered, soft countered, and then tolerated by the rest. Instead of the old 1 of 8 really crappy mirror mates that full damage type BGs draw it feels more like 4 of 8. Disease damage inhibit does not compete as well as other damage additions nor do the Disease spells. Disease amp is suffering in availability and variance. Attack : Disease is truly horrible. ****************************************************** Would like to add solutions here to help change this around with the focus being Disease, while avoiding the much bigger issue of hard counters completely shutting down certain mechanics. Examples include fear, full damage mirror matches, hunter X etc. Solutions: 1. One of the ideas I liked when reading other threads was the evolution of a virus/plague system. If something is immune to the damage of disease at least the host being infected could be affected by a more brutal virus that matures over time. Possibly the same mechanic as Kipto poison that triggers an effect after you are poisoned so many times. 2. Immunity removal spells. Reflesh takes away boon of the undead. Cheaper versions of that spell that make units into fleshies for a few turns at an affordable cost (not the 40 reflesh is now) would be a way to make disease useful. 3. Expand Black Death availability and trigger effects (much like revel misery). Enables more damage potential that was loss by not being able to use disease. 4. Constant disease application triggers another damage effect. Thematically the only damage type I could think of would be possible 3 loss of life per application on a diseased target.
Poison does have this same problem, but at least the undead are not 100% immune to poison. But yeah, attack: disease and attack: poison should get a Skirmisher discount.
Soul Reave does nothing to alleviate the disease problem. It replaces the auto attack with loss of life. Soulreave at best is a way to supplement alt damage on 1 to 2 key targets not counter entire factions. It doesn't make disease damage useable or the auras or the shields. It certainly doesn't allow Attack Disease users to attack shrines. I'm not really sure why it is even being brought up. I mentioned there is a broader spectrum of problem involving other damage types, and mechanics like fear and hunter which are facing similar issues. However I can't think of one that is as tied to the hip or suffering like disease damage and it's effect on zombies.
In my opinion champions with attack disease and abilities that could damage relics/shrines but are diseased base should all be discounted. This leaves disease as a risk/reward scenario. It's the worst damage type but if you do catch people without those immunities then you get a good bonus. The main Issue/problem that I have with disease/poison is that the shrines/relics are unaffected otherwise yes I do believe a discount is warranted.
Black death and disease are linked abilities, if black death triggered from some other condition than diseased (defiled, inhibited and decaying are some choices) then disease based battlegroups would have another tool against immunes.
What if disease worked like curse? If you are already diseased, you take additional damage when you are applied with disease/rabid attack again. Or possibly simply making disease stack unto itself, making it possible to get something like a maximum of diseased-9 on an opponent (as opposed to the limit of 5).
The curse change has proven to be very interesting. With a little extra wording it could have finally enabled a full on terrain control option FW lacks. I think that disease stacking would be a little to strong on the factions that can't stop it and still useless vs the factions that are unaffected. Disease can spread like wild fire but it has problems sticking. Disease can compound into a lot of damage but it suffers from to many immunities or secondary factors that make disease useless. On hit consequences like virus/plague development or a damage source coming from constant disease application are still viable options to consider though. Would converting zombies from disease immune to disease eaters be to unbalanced? would give them a benefit even if their offense is sacrificed and helps pad the damage they have to slog through to get to their targets. Has the nasty side effect of making them more vulnerable to AOE with the need to support each other with auras and disease aoe.
Virus system Champions infected with a virus will give the opponent a stack of the virus on basic attacks. Every stack of a virus produces a different effect. Affected champion has the effects of the current stack it is on + all the stacks before it. Champions lose a stack at the start of their turn. The final stage of some viruses would be a plague. Once the plague is reached the virus no longer loses a stack at the beginning of each turn. Ideally champions with low damage such as Afflicted Corpse and Festering Corpse would receive a virus. Plagues: A plague is a condition that summons a unit when an affected champion dies Bile Virus 3 stack liability 4 stacks -10dmg 6 Bile Zombie plague Wandering virus 2 stacks applies curse 3 stacks gives vulnerability disease 5 stacks give immobile 8 Wandering Zombie plague lethal virus 1 stack -2 def 3 decaying 4 stacks -3 spd 8 stacks affected champion dies
This a pretty neat idea. Addressing other ppl complaining about disease damage only be viable against 4 factions when the only thing that hard counters disease is your own faction and constructs. You can't complain about cleanse making your damage type useless when it has the same affect on any other damage type that leaves a condition. Also not to mention every attack completely stops your opponent from healing and zombies are able to swarm. I don't understand the downplaying of this theme.
Great! I'm glad you like it. Couple questions How can it be improved? Should reaching the plague stage also apply delfield? what do you think is a good number of stacks for the plague effect to take hold?
First id like an idea of how many champs will have this ability because if only one champ has it. It is impossible to get the maximum amount of stacks if u lose one at the end of ur turn (It'd be possible but by the time you actually would have enough stacks the champ would be dead(this would only work against low damage high defense champs)).
I was thinking that Infected zombie, Contained thrall, Festering corpse, and flesh blight zombie could get this ability. Of course the damage output of fleshblight would need to be lowered.
Or maybe the virus could be spread with a fester like abillity. Bile virus, Target champion within 4 spaces gains a stack of Bile virus. CD 1 AP 2 This would allow for more champions to gain access to virus abillities
New idea! Infections: Infections give the infected champion + all adjacent champions 1 stack of virus at the beginning of each turn. Infections do not affect champions with immunities or resistances to certain damage types. Viruses Viruses apply different effects based off the number of stacks they have. Viruses are named after the infectiion that causes them. Bile infection AP 5 CO 2 Target adjacent champion becomes Bile infection Bile virus Doesn't affect champions with resistances or immunity to Acid 1 stack depression 2 stack delfiled 4 stack -2spd 6 stack decayed
It's a neat idea and definitely a start on something workable for disease. I'm going to hold off on adding to the thread since the entire faction and racial bonuses are in question again. Might draft some virus ideas together when I rework my humans rune suggestions from elsari to anti paladins under the new format. I still really want to make that death benefit thread to since there's a lot I like from it but some things that I think are a little disappointing as well.
They could have done more with the infectious ability but it kinda stayed on just the plague trap and plague spell
