Sorry for the double post guys but another question for all of you. With Kiergana out, and neither the Ritual Crone or either Cultist really runnable, where do we get our source of magic dmg for things like Spirit of the Mountain. Is there anything that is out of the Kanen theme but in SP/SL that is viable or meshes well with a Kanen bg? I'm having a look now.
At 84 nora I don't feel she's too runnable, especially considering how every other meta theme has been recosted a lot cheaper. But as you say, we might have to bite the bullet and run her for the magic dmg and utility
I'm really just gonna wait till the rebalancing hits again. as of now, all the cheap Res: Physical champs are killing kanens' efficiencies. And kiergana's losing blast still impacts late game growth potential. I think there should be an Attack: Magical kanen pack mentality champ. Otherwise, its a murder field out there. Watch out for: KF: Deadwood Strider FW: Deadwood Strider, Wandering Zombie, Ancestral Avenger UD: Warogg, Nefari Guardian ST: Tusk (SERIOUSLY 21 nora is stupid with Herder on him, I'm gonna ragequit pox for a while) this feels nostalgic back when people have FW/ST or ST/UD void shield and one with nora champ spams. Basically kanens weren't in the meta top 30 lol. Reflexes still counterable if you're lucky enough to get a Kanen Alpha. his improve range is a direct counter Reflection also didn't really hurt much given that you'd basically get tons of +HP to all kanens, so it compensates the miniscule damage from Reflection. 1) What I found to be problematic playing Kanen nowadays is Warogg's 8 SPD rushing you with BOTH reflection + resistance: physical. Your bet should be Rupture Alpha, but Warogg's Unstoppable doesn't really stop him at his pace. 2) The next offender would be Wandering Zombie. That guy just won't die since most mongrels are physical (given that Pillager is now 60ish nora, while the others are 50-ish... I only use Howler and Rupture as alt damage). 3) and the thing that grinds my gear: Ancestral Avenger. Its over when this guy sits at your font. I just rage quit. all our magic source sucks cost-wise and damage-wise.
I'm sorry but I completely disagree. She offers spell protection that you wouldn't find elsewhere, Para feedback was nerfed but is still a substantially good defensive ability. Rite + lvl3 heals makes for great survivabilty for the entire team, magic damage at a decent range.... I'm actually running one in my main Meta SP BG alongside my angel for my main source of magic damage, but if I didn't have the angel I would actually run two
The fact that you can't Rite swarmed Mongrels kinda killed all hope I still had for that thing... at 84 nora Kind of blows my mind that Kierg is the cheapest Crone in the deck (no, you don't count Ritual Cultist).
It's clear she got the superchamp treatment that so many heros/titans/angels got this last patch; overly compensated on the nora reduction. She will probably see a 6-8 nora rise with the next patch. Obviously im running her, i just hat that 5 speed...... tho many champs got that treatment from the revamp
5 spd isn't as major as I thought it would be when I first saw the change. Double tapping (while always useful) isn't as crucial when it's the first hit that matters. If anything, it's Blast that I miss the most.
kanen slipped is 66 nora is large (revisiting what tang said) I think kanen got to a good place with the revamp because a lot of the champs are pretty cheap, and that is powerful in the new meta. I haven't played around with them too much but I think there is some real potential. I see why there is hate for the cultist, but I still can't see myself running less than 1.
I totally agree, I feel like this is the case with most champs whos speed they brought down, so they did a good job with the global speed nerf However 5 speed still can result in draw-losses. Like I said on another thread, all maps should have fonts either 5 spaces away or 10 if 5 speed is to become as common as they are hinting at. No font should ever be 7 or 8 spaces away, however. That's just asking for game-breakers
You should never 1st drop Kierg anyway... Here's what I'm rocking so far. Garin would probably be a 2nd Howler once they fix that bug. Balpha is in there because he got mad cheap but I'm still not a huge fan. Cultist is interchangeable with... Cultist but losing all of the Sunder makes Magic Bomb pretty relevant. Dropped Bandit from Pillager because the recost kinda hurt. RB is a noob trap so it should probably be Purge or something. Or I could probably fit in Whirlwind+Mark somewhere instead, that's always a thing. (in fact I just did as I was typing this) SP shrine out of habit for drop stealth on Trackstar, could probably switch it but doesn't really matter. Lightning Storm could be one of eleventy billion other AOE but I like the value with Sparkies. Whispers is still OP. REALLY tempted to Tainted Statue the whole thing but skills. inb4 omg too many champs : that's the whole point. Open to suggestions.
Mine looks very similar, but I run Ava instead of Lightning storm.... and I actually have a thunderhead in place of a whispers. Depends on playstyle i guess but yes whispers OP. I run cleansing emerald in every BG i can, too. Vicious harpoon fits the BG too.... I have only 17 champs so I have room for these thigs. Is the bug you are talking about with garin/howler that you can run garin with other heros? Also I run timberjaw alpha instead of rupture since I don't have rupture. Also I love fruit in Kanen BG's because of the way they work with free attacks; you can essentially kill a unit with the fruit without being affected by the AP loss drawback
Cuts? I completely spaced out on Fruit for some reason. And yeah you can run Garin+Kierg no problem, which isn't quite right.
yeah it's kind of a stupid bug I don't have garin, not running Crone, but have a cultist instead Not running either of the animus' atm.... but I might put one in in place of something, dunno what yet. And I am running 2x scavenger but only 1x Pillager... also might switch that up. Again tho, I've only played 1 or two kanen games since the revemp. Been trying a lot of different things, but yeah
To be honest, it seems like you should be able to run both together. I can't see why split-heroes need to be limited, but normal heroes don't.
Here's my BG that seems to have a different take to add to the discussion: It was definitely a lot more pack mentality heavy pre revamp but with the recent re-costing to the alphas I've included a lot more of them. I'm back in limited as of yesterday so I've seen some success with this BG, even on the split maps where Kanen do not shine too much. I attribute this to the top heavy aspect of the BG, allowing a lot of the champs to function individually (which I feel could be an issue with Jib's deck). I feel like even if the BG had to be Kiergana or Garin I would pick Garin in the end. This is simply because I do not feel like a 5 spd champ, not matter how much the utlity in the case of Kiergana can fit into the way I play Kanen, which is fast and dirty. I'm running Garin with shadowspawn, once you get that scythe it's easy to keep him stealthed, and for -2 nora shadowspawn over stealth seems like a no-brainer. A really satisfying thing is that you can get Garin to around 20 dmg with the various global buffs + domain: shadows. With his scythe whirl this is basically 20-40 dmg AoE every turn (with 7 spd double tapping is common) not including evisceration DoT. All in all a super under-utlized champ imo. I am tempted to throw out a purge or something to add a Kanen Cultist despite her high cost. She would synergise great with mine field and give some much needed sustain to the deck (but then again, the way I play I do not feel sustain is too relevant). In contrast to Jib: - Avalanche over lightning storm for the grounded and knockback sometimes giving me some sweet chasm deaths (whether the rare occassion I can get it off justifies choosing it over lightning storm when I'm running 2x crones is definitely debatable, I think I'm stubborn on this one) - Purge + Cleansing Emerald is definitely an overkill in my opinion, but I have won games where the double cleanse over a short period of time came in handy simply because the opponent was not expecting it. There's also the utility of purge debuffing the opponent. I'm very stubborn when it comes to change, but I think soon enough I'll drop purge for another champ. - Mine Field is a hidden gem in my opinion. So much utility and a lot less situational than one would think. While some champ knock back in the form of something like the Cultist would be useful, the Mine Field is still super functional and just a game changer almost every single round (going back to avalanche, while I rarely do this kind of spell spam, there have been opportunities to wipe the board with a mine field + avalanche combo, thanks to the knockback) - Only one tracker that I deploy on rocky maps. The hit to his stealth utility was bad enough, but then a +10 nora increase was just too much for me. Was hard to break up the party but it had to be done. - Tempest Crown has major synergy with both Slipped and Mine Field, and is one of the top runes in my BG - Timberjaw because, excluding all his other abilities, tough 3 and 54 hp (before 16 hp buffs from 2 relics and boost) for 71 nora is great All in all I think my Kanen deck maybe breaks the general trend and instead of focusing on cheap meat as a rule it is more focused on spell and equipment support to less champs. Of course, the major weakness with this BG is the lack of magic damage. 2x Yeti Spirit or an AA and the game is effectively over for me. So something has to change. I've been lucky so far to not run into too much incorporeal, but that's not the kind of attitude I should take, allowing me to get complacent.
I agree with pretty much all of this, it's simply a matter of taste. Especially Garin+Scythe which does way more work than we ever had the chance before the revamp because lolKierg. One thing I will harp upon though, something that's vital that I suffered during all my 6spd SL years : getting a first drop Pillager or Trackstar followed by something cheap enough to double drop (which you have plenty of but could use more) will outright win games, especially when you mention a weakness to multi front maps. And if you don't win it, it will at least prevent you from outright losing it.
What is the attractiveness of a 2nd turn double drop? The sheer momentum of having 3 champs on the 2nd turn when your opponent will likely only have 1? The problem is that the small Kanen that are cheap enough to double drop in a round are going to be like cannon fodder coming up against much stronger individual champs in KF or UD or ST in those 1v1 skirmishes that take place on the 4 font maps, this is my take on the matter. Maybe I am mis-understanding you in some way or my perspective is skewed?
8 speeders are absolutely curucial at the right time. because of this, I run 2 trackers.... draw wins; it's a mechanic worth taking advantage of when available. Maps are broken. Also, in my opinion, even at their current state, Lashers are 2x auto in kanen EDIT: Also, emerald and purge is overkill. There are less counters to Emerald, it being a relic and all, so drop purge. There are so many good support/harassment spells/relics/equips that SP and SL have that can easily fill that spot. Try a harpoon, slavers whip or rock trap. Or quicken
I agree about the 8 speeders, they're great, especially when SPD has been nerfed globally. I'm happy enough with the 2x animus for that, and just feel the tracker has become too situational to run 2x of. I feel quite the opposite about 2x lashers being an auto-include though. What is your logic in that? EDIT: And you're right in your edit. I think I am going to remove the purge, but instead of adding more utility I'm going to add an extra source of magic dmg, either Kiergana or Cultist.
