Hey guys, I'm an exclusively Kanen player and I think we can gather here to discuss how the Kanen are looking post-revamp. Slipped is no longer the powerhouse it once was. I am still running Kiergana despite the 2 spd downgrade. I've chosen to run her with pack leader and put a couple more Kanen runts in my deck to emphasise on this new cheap meat meta. Kanen alpha is looking stronger than before in comparision, and I'm very happy with the berserkers and the pack mentality Kanen in general. Any other Kanen players out there with some thoughts on how the Kanen are looking post revamp? We're definitely weaker overall I believe, but relative to all the downgrades on other themes, I think we're looking good, strong, and tactical.
Random thoughts... B.Alpha : Lost all the damages (so did everything else) and lost Blood Rage. Besides that he's pretty much the same. Thing is it was a questionable include BEFORE the revamp. Still is. Garin : Lost what made it awesome (Def Strike+Entangle). Upgrades are hella awkward but besides that he's exactly the same. I actually ran Scythe of Gore for the 1st time ever with it. I'll chalk that up as a win. K.Alpha : +11 nora that's it get over it. Improve Range is priced as such. Animus : Gotta tack on roughly 10 nora to get it where it was before. Still better than 80% of the ~60 nora champs in the game. K.Crone : ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTERS HERE. No seriously, denpending on how you ran it before it's not that huge. Trading a rank of boost for +1spd/escalation and 3 dmg hurts. But really, boost 3 owns... but at a price. K.Cultist : I liked having Motivate but whatever. Pretty sure no one ran her before so no big loss. Champ stayed basically the same. New cheapmeat meta could make a great use of heal3 and rites but that's another story. K.Darkrunner : You ran this for insane efficiency it had with AllyUD+Kierg. No point anymore, there's better options. K.Howler : hahahaha... hahahahaha. Sup I swarm and I cost 52 nora. If I could run 8 I would. Losing Def Aura is nothing. Death Nova is dumb keep at rank 1. K.Lasher : RIP Dodge+Sunder. Dragging Attack and Ensnare is a weird combo so I'm trying it with Drive... which again is dumb because Unleash is more efficient. Still the same, run it. K.Mongrel : 40 nora. Real. Hell even push it to 44 for surprise Unleash. I randomly run one because I can. K.Pillager : Lost Sunder (which made it awesome), gained dmg in the trade. Keeping trap at 1 for the cheap, Bandidtry is attractive but I wouldn't feel bad going for Siege for the cheaps. Because 62 nora 11 dmg 7 spd rofl yeah. K.Scavenger : MVP of all time. Seriously, he's goodstuff splashable good. Soul Collection+Dead Eater+Forage (Assimilate is for girls) is so dumb. Stats are irrelevant at that point but still decent. K.Slipped : Got it good yeah. Losing Thirst is kind of a big deal. Charge is super unattractive upgrade path. Still, at the end of the day it does exactly the same thing it did before... just poorer. (ed. note: didn't run it before, I don't feel bad about it) K.Tracker : Trackstar noooooo. Big deal for me is losing the double Hidden and ESPECIALLY Mountaineer but at the end of the day, it's still one of the dumbest 1st drop in the game. K.Whirlwind : Copy/Paste exactly the same. The problem is that they choose the wrong upgrades on it. Whatever... the 50 nora version with Multi1 seems viable. Kierg : Could have it's own topic. Lost everything that made her over the top. Wasn't a big fan of the urr-durr RB it auto-win mentality that seemed to work in lower leagues but eggs->basket doesn't work since she lost shielded. At the end of the day, range 6 Pack Leader is what it is but boy, do you need to work for it now. R.Crone : Whatever you didn't run it before and won't run it now. I'll note that the addition of Charged Attack is kinda cool but the only way to get charges is Abused. And she lost Vaporize... so yeah that won't work well. Random Unequippable is random. R.Cultist : Lost double bombs but you know, 1 bomb + DC3 was better anyway. Kinda works like it did before but lost too much dmg so the bomb is pure utility at this point. Magic being attractive since there's no Sunder anymore. R.Alpha : Lost everything that made it so awesome. Leap will be missed. Exert+Siphon will be missed. Could always fall back on Bonemaul WAAAIT everything worth running it on is a dumb Brute now so scratch that. Escalation vs Boost is a toss up for me. S.Crone : Losing Grant Aura and Feedback is a minor annoyance. Otherwise it's still more than fine. Tjaw : Perseverance and Stun was the only reason to run it and even with that I never bothered. 81 nora Tough3 build seems decent but no, I'll pass. So basically, big dudes got nurfed, small dudes better than ever. Still works but it's not an auto-pilot deck like it used to. Plays more like moga/skeez now. Position, powerturn, old-school SL stuff. Looking at my build, it might even make a perfect Tainted Statue deck because you don't need that many spells, just the op stuff (2x Quicken, 2x Whispers, maybe a panic VP). Seriously I'm testing a 21 champs build and will cut stuff accordingly based on redundancy/sucks more than expected. Too early to tell but going places. As far as gutted/unplayable race decks, Kanens got off easy. Fake edit : I can't understate how I hate the Brute thingie. Bonesplitter Maul worked so well in there. Still would... gaaaah
Hey Jib, thanks so much for your detailed thoughts on the new Kanen, it was helpful to me and I'm sure it's going to be helpful to anyone coming into this thread wondering on how Kanen are looking post revamp. After reading over your notes, I agreed with what you said on darkrunners and realised I haven't been having a good time with them. 2x scavengers now and 0x darkrunners. I'm still running both Crone and Kiergana because I need the alternative damage (magic) and the range. With 21 champs and mostly packrats I can't imagine where your alt damage is coming from (is pillagers and howlers enough?). On another note, I think spells/relics are on the up in the revamp with generally nerfed champions and my Kanen deck is currently looking 16/7/5/2.
Oh for now I'm running pretty much everything but the kitchen sink. Alt dmg isn't an issue. Crone and Kierg will still be in the final build so don't feel bad about running those, just be extremely careful with them. Really digging K.Cultist so far as well, Scapegoat just shot up in value in my eyes, even if I missed the random value Thrust every once in a while. I'm about 50/50 on beef vs cheap but final build should look like 2x Animus/Howler/Lasher/Pillager/Scavenger/Trackstar + whatever Witch/Alpha works. Animus would be my 1st cut and you could probably live with 1x Scav. Also, don't tell anyone but you can run Garin and Kierg in the same bg
Is the running of Garin and Kierg together a bug? Can other split-heroes be run together? I noticed that in a Kanen game I was watching the other day.
Don't know if you can do that with other splits but I suspect that there's something wrong with the way Garin is coded. Hell, checklist even says you can run 2.
Hey there What do you guys think of this bg? http://poxbase.com/#!/deck/CybcyWCyTCyYCi=ciZci_ciYCi@CiLchDs5QS1ks6Ys73s7usYs5jR2qr2frOe1O Also, just want to point out, that Idol of Kain Taris has the following description -> "This relic has Will of Kain Taris (All friendly Kanen gain +1 DEF, +1 DMG and +5 HP if a friendly Kanen with class Crone is in play. This effect does not stack.)".....But the issue is that there is no such class "crone". Or am I missing something here? Cheers
Yeah no crone that i've seen but i think they mean any of the female kanen. I would get rid of those ritual crones I would even say get rid of the cultist as well you need more alphas imo there. Maybe something like this? http://poxbase.com/#!/deck/cttcymCy...Dci0s5Qs6ws5hs5ks63s73s7us5js59s5wrPr2fr1Oe1O
Hmm...they should change the description for it. Anyways, thanks for the bg. Can you tell me what upgrades you use for those units? and perhaps some combos/tips on your selection? Oh also, just realized ritual crones dont have any basic attacks lol. OK, so yeh, taking those out....
Any alpha with tough 3 is an auto for me, I can't tell you how many times that has won me the game also for bloodhowler life drinker and kanen alpha subsume x2 Howlers is a toss up on hunter giant or carnivore since there are a lot of beast bgs these days and 2x2's are also common and death nova sonic 1 since it's more harmful to you x2 animus berserker 2 is an auto for 8 speed and rend 1 to make him cheaper x2 pillager this is completely up to you they do a lot a of damage regardless so taking siege may be good I personally use hunter mutant and lay trap 1 for a cheap 13 damage 7 speed common x2 tracker completely up to you which hidden you want and detect 3 is amazing x1 scavenger disease aura 1 and forage I don't find assimilate game winning for me x1 whirlwind multiattack 3 and fear 3 since he's still so cheap and he scales very well(note if you feel you need another kanen crone you could replace him or the scavenger) x1 crone Boost 3 could be a huge boon and drain 2 is only 2 nora so why not, also real magic damage compared to the ritual crone/cultist x1 kiergana also magic damage but you may replace her with a kanen cultist since she's not as good as she used to be Pack leader and life siphon auto x1 rupture alpha escalation and pack leader for me even though boost 2 and horrific howl aren't too bad either toss up there(If you don't have him Tiberjaw or Slipped may replace him somewhat) x1 spark crone surge kanen and jolt 1 for massive alt damage Zealotry on kiergana, spark crone, or bloodhowler alpha could make for high damaging champs that have lots of staying power Metamagic backlash is your answer to any champ with high charges usually anything over 15 is dead automatically unless it's IS Vertical push has a few applications if there's a champ with 20 or a bit less left that will kill it instantly or if only one champ is contesting a font it will take it out long enough for you to take it and deploy with no risk to yourself Cancel Magic if you sense a powerturn coming this will put a damper on that Purge solves most conditions but please read before casting i.e you can't cleanse pacify! Rage band is usually for kiergana gives her extra speed but if she's not out maybe bloodhowler Slum market train strike could make most of your champs hit really hard regardless of defense rating and assault makes a free hit if they disengage, also good at contesting fonts The rest seem obvious to me Often with this bg i try to have at least one alpha supported by a lot of smaller champs with at least one crone out for the idol bonus most of these champs are cheap enough and fast enough to contest and hold their own till the rest of the pack arrives and teaming up on a champ is easy with them
As someone who liked to play kanen pre-revamp, I was very sad to see how badly some of them got nerfed. They're still really fun, though. And Kiergana is still good, despite how badly she got nerfed. Also, while it may be the superchamping fiend in me, I really like Horrific Mutation and Havoc's Touch. HM you can get flying, speed, and horrific aura, that's really good, especially if they aren't using prestige or playing FW. Havoc's touch isn't quite as good, but it's still a decent spell, and you can use it to help get a kill you wouldn't have otherwise. I never considered slum market; I like that idea, and I might try that. I've been running kanen as an SP/SL split, but I'm wondering if it might not be a better idea to go SL/x, and try to fill in some of the holes by using another faction instead. UD with its amazing spells would probably be my top pick.
I tried to build SL/UD kanen earlier today, but it turns out you have to cut way too many kanens to even make the deck legal, and that kind of defeats the point of playing kanen. I tried switching some stuff around, most notably using vertical push and whispers of the mind, and got two wins with it (I forget against what now) and then lost to a meta IS deck after a couple of weird things happened, as well as when my powerturn was foiled by a hidden spell I should probably have seen coming. I did discover two different bugs with kanen slipped today, though, so be careful with him. One is that when he goes manic towards an avatar, he will get adjacent to the avatar but won't actually attack it. The other is that he cannot charge over arctic terrain. My opponent said (I think; his english was rough) that it's always been this way, and that I was crazy for thinking otherwise; he said it was because his champion was in the water and couldn't be charged. The situation looked like this: A-B-C-D Square A had his champ, flying over water (an angel of protection) Squares B and C were unoccupied arctic terrain Square D was arctic terrain and where my kanen slipped was standing (with charge 3 upgrade) No hidden relics were present, as I was able to walk up to the champion and attack it, and it wasn't impeding terrain, because it took 1 movement per square. (I once got stumped for half a turn in a game because I couldn't charge a champion, with no explanation in the log, until I moved up and found a stealthed head of osarius, probably making a trollface at my champion)
The Manic thing is simple : Avatars have Impenetrable and Manic targets. I get that it's not really intuitive but it's one of those Pox quriks you learn the hard way... ...exactly like Charge on terrain. It's a dumb thing we learn to live with.
Yeah I put Slipped back in. Not because I like it, because it's cheaper than Pillagers and Trackstars. B.Alpha is back in as well, got a huge decrease. T.Jaw got down to affordable status, still not worth it imo. Kanen Cultist going to 84 was a headscratcher, that thing was borderline playable. Staaaats.
