Umbral wolf is much stronger than defiler. I am surprised defiler is so high up, but it might be due to attrition vs in theme spirits, I'm used to the latter.
I think you have see some of the skeketon too high. Bone ele and broken bones sort of need boost. Bone ele is mainly run for in theme detection. Contained thrall will out class in meta.
I was satisfied with Bone Elem with Consume when I tried it out last week. I really don't think it needs Detection, and Consume makes it much more of a hassle to attack.
I don't think it was me that was talking about thrall, although thrall is one of my favorite zombies I think it was somebody else that mentioned him.
I meant in skeletons, it is the only source of viable detection with race skel. I'm not sure it is worth it outside of skell because you summon flimsy units, only if they target you directly, which is a big if with 10 damage and 80 nora cost. You also don't want to target contained thrall directly, because he has good defense and binding chains. Even bone shredder has calcify , spookies, and stun or sunder. Bone ele seems easy to counter is all.
I honestly think tortun boker is higher. Annex and soul tap. He feels like he can do everything. Plus cursed treasure is actually not bad. And it deals the 5 damage if they are already cursed. This unit also can get many shots off, thanks to tortun shell, 3 range, and natural tankiness. I also don't run essence devoured with horrific aura, which could be a reason I don't see it as t1. He's 100 nora initially, which is why I find it hard to make him t1. But I probably under value serkan as well.
Devourer takes too much time for setup to be worth his stats. Wow haven't looked at tortun in a while, he looks pretty dang good right now. Essence capture, and soultap is pretty dang good and he has great range, and pretty beefy.
I honestly don't bother with essence capture, because of the 4ap attacks. Annex is actually quite nice on almost all the maps except 2, the one with river lava cliff being the least useful.
I tried Bokor in just a couple games, it did fine. I'll give the annex build a whirl. As for Ed -- if you use Graveyard, it is literally 10 nora in set up, and after that you get 35 nora per deploy. The value is unbelievable, the tempo hit nominal.
Graveyard is 45 nora, 2 nora discount every two turns. Essense devourer is very strong. leech vitality and long term value being his main draw. Ed causes bad draws (GY first deploy is probably iffy, and u can't boost + ED further requires another rune to be played. also, relics are more risky to run due to global kills, u can't safely deploy more than 40 nora vs some factions as relics.
Ed gets -35 for having Devour Life, so you are only paying an effective +10 over the normal price of the champ. If you are worried about global relic killing, though, you can build a Riftlord version -- it is more stable, you don't have to worry about shrine damage, and you get another back-line support champion, but you lose out on the real-champ synergies and pay for more of a tempo hit. With Riftlord, you are looking at ~50 nora down; that's rough, but manageable, considering bird is about the same price. 100% agree with you there.
Oh I understand what you mean now. however, I really hate playing expensive melee units personally. You can't just look at the cost in a vacuum. ED means you will be forcing an engage or get out maneuvered. It means it will be harder to control a contestable side font. At least initially. I think low-Mid cost melee units are better. But, I guess that is the same with every faction minus SL and IF, KF. Im not an ED user personally, just because of the deck space and high entry cost, + bad draws. but if you run serkan or aspect, he will be strong. (aspect isn't on your support list?). I think outside of that, he isn't t1 personally. I like risen yeti. Unspeakable is pretty easy to use, and works well with dread or hex. And enrage on him gives him really high damage. He is really good as a defender or for snowballing a lead. Zombie behemoth is also cool, although his c.c immunity is a slight sandbag. I'll have to try him with horrific aura, I bet it makes a big difference
Which is a fair point -- that an opponent could get tempo by shifting around to a side fight. I'm not especially worried about that, though, first because you can delay investment in other things and drop something like an Afflicted to slow down the fight, and second because the current maps really seem more about managing tempo on a single front than along two. Yes, there are exceptions like UD, but whenever I lose with FW I feel like it's because I get rushed in and can't drag out the fight, not because I got picked apart across multiple fronts. I like him too. I have had other things in my testing rotation right now, but Yeti is up soon. Frightful Aura is also incredibly strong for its cost, and the champ has internal synergy. I might bump it to t1 from 1.5 at some point here. It is, but it makes him better against the ST font, which is big right now. Mainly I think the CD1 on KB3 can open up a lot of damage, especially with summons and careful positioning of 2x2 champs.
Risen Moga from t1 DOWN to t1.5. I still think that the champ is good, but given its more robust competition from across FW, I am not sure it is t1 material.
My big thing with essence devourer is his size, I really can't stand melee 2x2 units and barely can stand 2x2 ranged units. Also devour life is just another thing to have to micro manage in pox, and with the current ability and attack bugs I don't have the time per turn.
Considering cracking open t1 a bit -- have found plenty of great, playable champs. Risen Yeti is certainly great, and so is Zombie Behemoth. I would likely put Contained Thrall up there as well. I played a couple games with him were he was just incredible, and I think the rune fills and important defensive role in attrition. So, here's what I'm considering, if I open up t1 a bit: Corrupted Guardian to t1 Contained Thrall to t1 Risen Yeti to t1 Utterdark Shadecaster to t1
I never ran contained thrall with nkd due to odd synergy with chains, but I'm guessing it works well. Shadecaster is t1. Corrupted guardian as t1 strikes me as strange. Yeti still strong tank, not 100% sure if he needs frightful aura maxed though.
