Forsaken Waste Issues - please let me know

• Fixed are sorely needed for Witches and Zombies. I made 2 threads on it in bigger detail.
  http://forums.poxnora.desertowlgame...-of-the-fw-witches-for-fun-and-dreaming.4192/
  http://forums.poxnora.desertowlgame...all-changes-and-why-to-spirit-champions.4235/
• Soultap is still bugged and really need to be fixed
• Themes need so much attention. Any bg build to win seems to almost only MUST BE mix match of meta champs. Skeletons and Zombies are the exception so far.
• Serkan needs to be worth running (as do most expensive champions) and I really think speed 7 is on the MUST have things. He is bland,easy to deal with has no affinity with Liches at all. So far i have played against him 3 times and every time an opponent deploy him against me I smile and concider the game easy won.
• Liches as a whole need some work. Dark Apprentice imo should be a CHEAP support rune and the only one with Leverage Lich. Lichlings should be saboteurs like their flavour states, not the go to Leverage champion.
• Bonewing needs range and Flanking imo. Getting a Boost champion in melee is not a good idea.
• Regal Presence was imo a bad idea on a champion wit Race undead. Its more or less an autoinclude in all undead BGs and it feels like this one champion is the reason so many other champions have low damage.
• Soulcollection is far to rampant and is missing on some of the key champions who really ought to have it.
  
• Curse. Please make it a flat 6 damage that ignore Defence and apply Curse 1 or 2 depending on rank. It might see some use then. As it is it is an ability you never feel like taking and especially not upgrade to rank 2
• Why does Executioner have Mark as an upgrade?? Why does Dark Knight have Warding an an upgrade? Why is DMZ an option on the Crossbone and where is his Precision? Why Stitched on Corpse Golem. Why Reconstruct Stitched on Fleshweaver.
• Undead Magister. No one will ever use him as long as he cost so much. He is a counter to spells. Any cost over 45 and he will never see play.
• Why not do away with Hunter Protectorat/Wrath? It makes a champion OP in 50% of the cases and UP in the other 50%
• Prices on abilities. Soulsift 2=Disease Breath 2???????
• Serkan LE and Serkan Exo has different abilities, upgrades and cost
• Terrify does not always reduce AP to 0. Noticed to fail twice and Nokando champions (and no they where not fearless or Ironwill)
  
  
  Favourite Non hero champion: I would have said Fleshweaver Witch. She fits her primary theme (zombies) can be interesting with allmost all upgrade paths, is not a "can be splashed into any type of BG champions" and seems to have the right stas/nora cost. The thing that pisses me of about her is the lkack of Coven and Reconstruct Stitched Upgrade.

 

You know? To be fair, I think reconstruct blackguard made perfect sense flavour-wise on the fleshweaver. If she is a weaver, then the things she craft are stitched. I do not see myself taking her ever into a stitched bg (despite the fact I have no interest in playing stitched at all), and probably would require something else to made consider it (maybe changing one of her upgrades for deconstruct or something), but still flavour wise it fits.

BTW, to add to the list of ridiculous prices:

Reconstruct blackguard = Revel in misery (previously, forsaken conduit) > Life siphon.

IIRC, life siphon is roughly +8 from the cheapest ability I have found so far (berserker attack 1), which would made reconstruct blackguard and RiM +10n. +2n for a conditional healing that usually recovers roughly the same than life siphon is absurd. The only instance where RiM is stronger than LS is if the entire bg is designed around this, which is quite a feat considering there are only 6 champions with RiM right now, and most of them doesn't have hex or curse. Last straw: toll-taker have life siphon as upgrade on the same path than RiM. Disregarding this, placing it on the same level than reconstruct is equally absurd. Reconstruct spawns a full HP champion, although the cost is lessened by the relic requirement. Still, a unit that can contest, generate AP and fuel abilities like dead harvest is way, way more powerful than a situational heal. If anything RiM is 2n overpriced.

 

I agree that FW got a huge boost in soul collection champs but all the synergy seems to be compressed in Dusk creeper. He has fading light, assimilate, dead eater. The only other combo with it is I think forage. IMHO I think it's good to have those combos spread out a little more.

I'd be interested to hear your suggestions on the lich/serkan themes.
Assuming ability costs couldn't be changed how would you build him so that he is cheep and in theme?
Does he need a redesign?

From what I see so far Skeletons/Liches/Spirits all rely on surge to tie it together and have some other smaller interactions within it.
Skeletons I'm fine with but Liches/spirits should get something that distinguishes their play a little more.

Do witches need more curse applicators or more cursed interaction?
Creep as a theme is pretty much blah at the moment and would need a lot of the creeps reinstated and a hard look at the champs (especially the ones that have no basic attack).

 

Liches are fine, skellylich mix is now even good in UD and SP.
Stealth and incorporeal overuse are terrible hardcounter or lose abilities, I'd prefer spirits to get something different.
Witches simply don't have any win condition (having everything cursed isn't one at all). You can run witch modules in chops, elves or humans, but full witch bg has always been quite pointless.

 

they mentioned that they are thinking about pricing of expensive champs. imo the Algorithm should simply do a linear cost calculation for stats and abilities, and then apply a bell shaped curve centered on 75 nora (+/- 25). that may fix some lich problems .

 

1. A small Redesign of Serkan would be cool. All the lore around him is as the True Lich King and the chosen champion of the Utterdark Spirits.
Trying to build something that takes the flavur and the old design of him into account i would try for this:
Damage: 12 Speed: 7 Range: 5-7 Defence: 2 HP: 52
Attack electricity
Boon of the Undead
Hero
Teleport 1
Evil Aura
Frost Cone 2--Defensive Strike--Cripple
Command Lich--Command Spirit--Weary
I do not know what this would cost but I think it might be interesting and thematic. And it would once and for all do away with his healing thta is one of the things people think takes him over the top. This would in turn encourage people to use champions with Worship Lich.

2. Liches
Make Dark apprentice cheap and the only champion with Leverage Lich.
Change Lichlings to have some Sabotour abilities to fit their flavour. Some trap laying would be cool.
Change Lich Servitor. Remove Exertion in upgrade tree and replace it with Surge: Lich and Bullwark Lich. Remove Surge from base to make it a little cheaper.

3. Spirits
Se seperate thread, but they should be about Stealth, Debuff and Soultap. Not Surge.

4. Creeps. No input but yes it needs work.

5. Witches. Se my seperate thread, in short yes.

 

I know the first question was aimed specifically at liches, but can I ask why re-costing abilities is not an option? I think we have posted many examples of abilities price that doesn't made any freaking sense so why is recosting abilities out of the table? Is this a technical issue? If so, what's the point on modifying the champions if the prices are still a problem that eventually will have to be looked at? If is just a big no, because (spiderman!), then... well, this will be a long discussion.

As for witches, what they need is simple: both.

The revamp basically removed some application power (elsari coven as upgrade for flat 5n? Really?), and then also killed some of our stronger synergies (no more wicked aura or punish for ap denial shenanigans), and gave us no new toys to mess with. Yeah, we gained some new champions with class witch, but most don't have EC at all, and none offers a new synergy or combo, just have witch class for flavour reasons. What's the point on applying curse more often if there are not many abilities to capitalize on it? And what's the point on having good synergies to play with curse if rarely triggers? Frankly, asking to pick one is quite pointless.

BTW, does anyone noticed there is a witch foe ability on the game? The theme isn't playable yet, but we already have strong counters.

If I can apply some changes to witches:

- The price on elsari coven need to be reduced by 2n.
- On the applicator side, I think placing shadestrike on some champions can do a lot to improve the application.
- On the interaction side, there is a lot of work: for starters, RiM need to be re-priced (according to PoxBase, RiM is worth 12n, while all the acolyte abilities are worth 6n), and need to be sprinkled again on more witches; pain curse need a nerf and be placed on a witch; more champions need hex instead curse (if EC can apply the curse condition, why the heck do we have curse as a complete separate upgrade? If EC and curse were on the same upgrade, it would made sense from a meta vs theme perspective, as it stands right now, is just redundant when designing a thematic bg); and last, but not least, we need to modify some non-champions rune to interact with the cursed condition. See: foul rite. As it stands, it will not see play. Maybe if we change from "destroy real friendly undead champions" to "for every cursed champion", then we may have a different thing. We may have to add a duration on the buff, but still would be an improvement.
- Also on the interaction side, I think we need new abilities to capitalize on the cursed condition. Cursed foe is a good example.

 

You're probably right, but his healing was one of the reasons I liked him.

 

For costing feel free to note if you think certain abilities are way overpriced, I just didn't want too much feedback basically being "We want all our abilities cheaper".
As for Coven, what if it was based on the number of witches instead of the number of champs with elsari coven and then the number of witches with that option decreased? Basically a zombie Apoc treatment which would leave more room for more thematic abilities.

I like the idea on tieing serkan to liches/spirits and furthering him from the vampire theme.
What if he had something like this-

Damage: 10 Speed: 7 Range: 5-7 Defence: 2 HP: 52
Attack electricity
Boon of the Undead
Hero
Defensive Strike
Command: Undead
(Portal, Teleport 1, Confuse enemy)
(Evil Aura, Soultap, Cripple)

 

Issue: Leech ability on Demonvien is not working

 

yob's serkan sounds fun, but I think as long as vendetta works off of any undead he will always be nerf bait. perhaps a change to that equip needs to happen since my idea of racial archetypes is apparently a no go.

 

I like the idea but Command Undead may be over the top (Especially with Regal Precnce and Improve range on two other Undead champions)
Portal over Teleport has merit with Death Guard I like it.

 

I think it would be fine depending also on the proportion of champions with elsari coven at base. I mean, right now there are 24 zombies, and 11 of them have access to ZA, roughly 40%. If we give the "zombie apoc treatment", and we have 20 witches in FW (22 if you consider stitched to be part of FW) (Personally, I don't mind EC to remain FW exclusive or go into split), then I expect a reasonable number of champions (8, maybe) to retain the ability, either as upgrades or at base. The reason is to keep some sense of "freedom" or flexibility when picking units at design stage, so we don't have to include always the same 3 witches, without any room for variance. Yeah, most of us will always include the best 3 witches for reveal rates and competitiveness, but it would be fun to think we could pick a weaker witch if not because, well, is weaker.

Other than that, do you think is feasible that some (or most) of the witches that could lose elsari coven gain shadestrike? EC is worth priced at 5n, shadestrike is 4n, it wouldn't be too much of a difference price wise, but would improve by leagues the general power of the theme, and we have been asking for it for some time now.

Do you have any idea on the cursed interactions?

 

Ok, I think we are getting somewhere with Serkan to make him more flavorful
How is this:

Serkan:
Damage: 10 Speed: 7 Range: 5-7 Defence: 2 HP: 52
Attack electricity
Boon of the Undead
Hero
Defensive Strike
Cripple
(Portal, teleport 1, teleport 2)
(Commander: Spirit, Commander: Lich, Evil Aura)
This gives him synergy with spirits/lichs or he can choose to be selfish and get evil aura for his only source of healing. His dmg can afford to be small due to cripple and his equipment which should not be as swingy now that he does not have a siphon.

As for Witches, if only 8 would have access to elsari coven then I would imagine that would open up more DMZ/Curse interactions.
However the only curse interactions we currently have are Pain Curse (currently not on a witch), Revel in Misery (currently on 1 witch), and forsaken exploit (currently on 1 witch).

Perhaps it would be better to have the Curse ability replace all prior Elsari coven spots and change it to be a curse interaction itself->
Curse: Target champion becomes cursed 2 (stacks?Doesn't stack?) and receives (magic damage? Loss of life?) equal to the Cursed condition duration.

This would basically make the theme mesh much better with curse condition and allow weaker witches to become much stronger in the witch theme.

 

Zombies need some work to be viable again

 

Please elaborate a little bit concerning this.

Are they too slow? not enough champs with ZA?
Which zombies are lackluster at the moment?

I personally like the idea of zombies being the very cheap meat overwhelm theme and think that should be accentuated.
Would you run ghoul/contained thrall/corrupted guardian if it had lumbering or lethargic?
How about Abomination if it had lethargic?

Mairdreth's upgrades, and Necrotaur seem to be the other zombies (besides the above) that could need some love, ideas?

*note* maybe Dark knight, instead of having zombie apoc upgrade as its zombie synergy could get black death instead?

 

I would be against adding commander spirit to serkan. He ties in thematically with liches but not with spirits and I'd feel weird having to include him when he has no other synergy.

Elsari coven being based on the amount of witches can't work unless coven itself does something. Otherwise you'd only need one champion to enable it. The champion that takes it would need to have an inherent bonus when dealing with cursed champions while the cursing itself would scale with witches.

 

I cannot elaborate because I didn't investigated a lot, but I tried to get a zombie bg together for the guy asking for it and I realized they don't have a chance, without enough swarm or range and range protection, and no phalanx mechanics they are going to be sitting ducks waiting to be picked off by range or powerturns.
I noticed that fleshblight has black death and apoc on the same upgrade path, that particularly bad.

About mairdreth, you could try to tie more champs into black death synergy and you could give necrotaurs revere mairdreth and some more synergy

 

The ghoul is not currently a zombie and doesn't synergies with anything except disease. He also lost his role as a tank with reflect as he went from 4 to 1 defense.

I'm trying on a phone atm. But as an idea for coven:
Elsari Coven
(Current effect but scaling on witches). This champion's basic attacks deal 1 additional damage to cursed champions for each negative condition they have.

This means it is useful to have more than one coven champion. It synergies with the actual cursed condition and also uses the witches generally overlooked theme of applying multiple negative effects to enemies (diseased, distracted, deep wounds, hexed, blind, cripple, chilled, magic bombed, etc). Almost every witch applies a debuff other than cursed and coven could capitalise on it very well. This would also give the ability uses outside of the direct theme so long as they can apply a curse.

It's also why I think a witch would do well with the Death Sentence ability.

 

So this brings up an interesting point I'd like to expand upon regarding our Hero Lineup:
Zombies - Moragen the lost, (Coragh/Mairdreth the rot - sorta heroish)
Spirit - None (I liked the thematic note that Serkan is basically the real lich king and has an in with the spirits of the utter dark)
Witches/Humans- None (sarinda sort of)
Liches - Serkan (sort of, he doesn't really fit in theme other then just being another lich to surge off of or prock servitors)
Skeletons - Xulos
Vampires - None

Serkan could forseably mosey into both spirit/lich themes or just stay with liches which is fine.

Zombies are currently glutted with heroish guys... perhaps Moragen would be better at home in spirits flavor wise since she is more siren like and not zombie like?
I think if memory serves me correctly she wasn't originally a zombie but was made so when zombies got a racial "push".