Forsaken Waste Issues - please let me know

For me I just dont see every theme requiring a hero. I think it would also be nice for new players to not have to rely on a hero for every theme. I do agree that for the themes the heroes do have they could do with more synergy in their upgrades though.

I think Moragen was always a zombie, but until they got apocalypse the race didn't matter.

Hope you consider the coven change suggested above.

@BansheeX
Crossbone has had Precision on base since the revamp was first done, so I am not overly certain where you keep getting the idea he doesn't have it. Also, Domain: DMZ seems to just be a neutral upgrade that might allow him additional use outside of skeletons.


I think one thing DOG are trying to do is make it so champions can be used out of theme. This is because they want to encourage players to think of the synergy rather than themes having it baked in for them. The problem is people are so used to themes (which they are also trying to keep viable) that any attempt to remove a champion from being stuck in a theme seems to get hit back at with hostility.

 

This! I think they ought to find a middle ground, as in having some champions represent the theme and be as you say "stuck in the theme", while others would be free to roam around and find multiple decks they belong to.

 

Interesting... so then maybe a better question is what champions don't seem to be designed very well or are generally unusable.

Although some themes arguably do need some help.

Creeps?

 

I am sorry but you are wrong.
Try Reading the lore on utterdark and Spirit Champions. Serkan has a lot of flavour to tie him to Spirits

 

And isnt Serkan like the master of all forsaken wastes? he should commander of zombies/spirits/creepers/vampyres/skeletons, he used to fit in any bg he wanted.

 

Any other longstanding bugs or inconsistencies?

 

Soultap

 

And greater vampirism increasing healing by 50% instead of 100%

I know Serkan fits in lore wise. But as said above he fits in with everything lore wise. At the end of the day he is himself a lich with no spirit-based abilities. He doesn't hit in with them in terms of actual gameplay and artstyle. At the end of the day if I wanted to play spirits, I wouldn't like to add an expensive lich just because he was made to have synergy. It's like adding the Magelord to witches. You can give him witch synergy, but at the end of the day, he ain't a witch.

 

Creeps right now can't work. Even placing 2x of each unit with creep in a BG I think you get about 8. This means you literally cannot expand the deployment zone.

But expanding he deployment zone is a pretty bad racial and most of us know it. It was too much of a gimmick to let them actually be powerful.

I would personally prefer it if Creep and Creep Master were just dropped entirely and they were made into better free-standing units to be splashed around. Some of them would fit thematically with disease, others with stealth, others with spirits/soultap. They already have synergy with other themes and a complete lack with other "Creeps" other than the ability itself.

 

I have to say, I always try to include a hero in each of my BGs, even if it isn't a perfect fit for said theme.

I guess I just like heroes.

 

Loss of Life (from the Soulreave spell etc.) does not go through Pawn.
Its a bug or bad wording and it used to do so.

 

As long as there really is a middle ground. I seem to recall quite a few people complaining about the lack of viable themes and only being competitive with "goodstuff" decks.

 

Let me get with the program.

As I previously said, adjusting the applicability of the cursed condition through improving EC would be half of the work, as we lost many abilities that were already on the witch theme. We used to had RiM on two witches, and forsaken exploit was on three champions. Then, we also had abilities that didn't interact directly with cursed, but with some perks of the bg as a whole, namely, we had punish and wicked aura (both gone now), and even considering the new witches without EC, we still didn't get something to make up for those losses. Yes, we gained some abilities through the new witches, but basically none interact with the cursed condition, or the theme playstyle, which I would dare to say is plainly in-existent right now. Just a bunch of champions that share a class, but have no real synergy between them, or the cursed condition.

Following these trend for synergy rather than single trick ponies, we need both, abilities that directly interact with the cursed condition applied by EC, and abilities that enhance the application, or enforce its presence. I know it sounds repetitive, but shadestrike need to be include, it fits perfectly and if isn't broken on a cheap lich with surge lich (or spirit), it hardly would be broken on a more expensive champion. We have 15 champions with EC. If we cut it down from 7 (after revamping it), then we would have 8 witches to spread it. Also, another option I think we really need is defiling curse. Cleansing is quite prevalent right now, and if the theme is based around debuffs, a single reliable source of cleanse can wreck the theme.

Lastly: I don't fully understand the new version of curse. The rank 2 of the ability only increases the duration of the debuff, so if it stacks, it would only increase the duration of EC, but one of the aims is to made more reliable to apply its effects, so basically is redundant as most of the duration would come from having 4-5 witches on play, rather than using the curse ability over and over. If isn't stackable, it would reset the duration of the ability (that's what happens with the DoTs), so it actually would be an hindrance to use curse and shorten the effect of EC rather than improving it. Increasing the damage is good, the conflictive part is the cursed condition.

Can we just change it to something similar to cursed treasure, or the old ferren ability? Apply cursed 4, if the target is already cursed, then it takes 5 loss of life? (LoL is strong, but is balanced, imo, by having a set 5 LoL, and requiring a previous condition on the target)

Thanks for reading.

 

Shimaru- Good feedback. Let's see if I can wrap my head around it (are you on right now?)

What if Curse looked like this->
Curse 1/2: Target champion becomes Cursed 2/4. That champion loses life equal to the duration that it is cursed.
That would tie the ability solidly into a curse applier and a curse benefactor.
Then it could be sprinkled. If it's too underpowered then have the duration stack. If too overpowered only have rank 1 available.
Of course Curse ability would need to be sprinkled more liberally.

I'm a little hesitant to suggest revamping EC directly if more curse interactions are given in theme.

I do agree with defiling aura and shade strike as being available in the toolset.

I'll be finishing up my notes shortly today.

For stitched I focused on stitched first as his upgrades currently don't mesh at all due to the tied cool down and ability overlap.

 

That coven change was more to make coven itself do something if you had it scale based on witches instead of units with coven. Otherwise, if you have 2 units with coven out, you're being inefficient. If coven does something, it can be a little more expensive and actually be a good upgrade choice as it gives the actual champion something while enabling the theme passively.

i.e.
If you had 5 witches out and 2 had coven.
- You'd get the coven bonus equal to 5.
- The champions with coven would deal extra damage to cursed units based on the amount of conditions they have on them.

On the curse note, I think damage equal to the duration could be dangerous once they start having champions cursed 14+ on deploy due to coven. Maybe Curse 1/2 could have damage caps? (with curse 2 having a higher cap)

 

Hmm... That's interesting. So you would be fine with Say:
Curse 1 = If target champion is cursed it loses 5 life (not effected by def), otherwise it becomes cursed 2.
Curse 2 = If target champion is cursed it Loses 10 life (not effected by def), otherwise it becomes cursed 4.

Fikule-
7 witches in play would result in 14 dmg curses but I'd hazard a guess that using their standard abilities would result in better dmg. It seems like it would be similar to back when it stacked the d-buffs. Certainly you could bring a champ down to low stats but you'd probably just kill him normally anyway (but it was good against super champs).

Basing the dmg on negative conditions seems like it would be more problematic.

In any case I do like Shimaru's idea for curse.
Would this curse change (as well as adding some additional curse to some witches) and sprinkling shadestrike, RiM, and Forsaken conduit about do it for witches and make elsari coven as it is worth its nora cost?

 

I think it would be a fine starting point, and probably would made the theme competitive enough. You forgot to mention defiling aura, which I think is as important than any of the line up you named. Have you faced a cleansing emerald on the field? With SP and KF as they stand, is more common than you think, which for a witch theme implies haunt is an auto include. Still, those 4 turns can be quite troublesome.

Now, can we talk about specifics? Which champions would you envision obtaining RiM, or forsaken conduit? Which ones would lose elsari coven, or would we get new witches?

Can we made suggestions?

 

Just pointing out that ~80% of witches in FW have 10 or less damage. So a 14 damage curse would be a damage increase for them, not also including the fact that it would be 14 loss of life, with all the benefits granted by it. The fixed numbers sound better to me

Also, just making sure, you know I am on about Elsari Coven dealing extra damage based on conditions as an extra to what it does now? Not as an extra to curse.
I mean, conditions are almost a theme for witches.
Archfiend - Bloodied, Frightened
Cackling Witch - Distracted, Frightened, Hexed, Awestruck
Dark Enchantress - Frightened, Charmed
Dark Seductress - Charmed, Hexed
Elsari Swordmage - Bombed effect, Frightened
Fleshweaver Witch - Diseased
Frostvein Witch - Chilled, Debilitated
Inkblight - Blind
Mysian Lamia - Bloodied, Soultapped, Shrunken
Rip Witch - Diseased, Deep Wounds
Sarinda - Eviscerated
Wretched Witch - Charmed, Pacified, Diseased, Poisoned

That's 17 separate conditions available in the witch theme. If Elsari Coven just said "This champion deals 1 additional damage per negative condition on the enemy" (without the cursed requirement) on top of it's usual effect, that would make Coven useful in a witch BG. It would also allow an additional "Condition Theme" separate from witches.

So in effect it would make coven a more desirable choice as it gives something to the actual champion using it (again, I am assuming coven is being changed so only one champion would actually need it in a witch BG) and also open up a new theme in conditions specifically.

For the record, I am saying this would just be an additional to Coven, so it would be desirable on more than one champion. It wouldn't be the "theme" aspect of the ability, it would just be granting extra damage in a thematic way to justify more than one champion using coven. In general I would expect it to allow them to deal an extra 1-2 damage, sometimes 3, unless they are specifically working towards it.

It would also make Death Sentence and Judgement possible witch theme abilities as "finishers".

 

Yes witches are definitely about conditions although that's mainly to deal with the fact that they have sub optimal damage. I really like the flat damage and 5/10 loss of life through def seems fine. What you're suggesting is like a reverse Shrive? That could be something really interesting for a future witch.

Shimaru-
You can certainly suggest specifics.
I do like making curse more prevalent/based on the condition.

So far I have something roughly like this:
Cackling - add Defiling Aura into Path 1
DSuductress - Shadestrike
Lamia - Curse 2 upgrade
Sarinda - RiM Just combos too nicely with damage shields
BloodBanshee - Bring into witches for Pain Curse and rename/adjust abilities more towards spirits/witches. Since this is a higher costing melee champion it should be a much better home instead of the cheap elsari magelord. If it stays on him then the ability will probably need a nerf.

I'll spend about another 1hr30min on this and then I'll have to wrap it up.

 

As a note on the seductress.

She is a bit mismatched right now. She has stealth but doesn't do anything with it other than going in and attacking.

Would prefer her if her first upgrade line had stealth benefits and her second upgrade line had defensive/buff benefits.

example:
Upgrades 1: Mark, Knockout, Startle? (would have said shadow shift, but that makes veiled flight pointless)
Upgrades 2: Abash, Frightful Aura 3, Hit & Run

Obviously just example abilities. But I don't think Hex has good synergy with stealth and actively discourages her from going into melee.