Greetings. I am purple. Like the old days. Incoming wall of elaborately spaced text. You've been warned. I've come here today to discuss the theme that currently has the least of attention in MY honest opinion (and I cannot tell a lie). Liches. People run spirits (and I don't blame them), zombies (absurd to me even though I like them), skellies (still one of my favorites), creepers also need attention ( a lot) while witches are currently being fiddled with. I have heard some FW comrades of mine say that they feel FW doesn't have as good of range as most other factions with their options, and that's even with the almighty dusk creeper, whom I also love. But liches... hold a special little place in my heart, and they appear to have at least three things going for them, the same three things as pre-revamp: - Heals than are capable of rocking ones ass (global regen, divine favor, not expected from FW) - High damage capability that is capable of rocking ones ass - Amazing range that is capable of rocking ones ass But through personal exploration and interview I found that liches aren't only not regularly played comparatively speaking, they aren't competitive enough to be played. This isn't the whole truth but there's a point there. Sometimes I feel that liches have too much range and not enough melee. The best I can think of at the moment is anthropomancer and draco lich. Lichling doesn't count and I find him to be inefficient. ...The POINT of me typing all of this is to spark a flame in order to combust discussion of: -What could be improved with liches in particular? Or how can they be played at maximum efficiency -What is already efficient? -What are some potential rune ideas, either entirely new runes, or changes to pre-existing ones, spells included. One good example is Glimpse into Utterdark. I ran that spell for ages and once I realized I never once had to use it, I put it away. But I really enjoy its concept. But I didn't even use it in spirits let alone liches.
Firstly I love liches there are just awesome here is what my lich bg looks like http://poxbase.com/deck/cdVc8Gc7yCdYcoOcw4c16CjJcoXcwocgtCg-ChXcuPcjZS6Zspsgsns4fs5arTr8e2le1m i plan to change it remove bloodbinder add dark messenger romove blinking add one more draco-lich or athromancer
I think this is a issue as well - with the amount of ranged champs out there you need to get in close - with liches you don't have that ability with just four six melee champs forgot Dark Knight and Lich Servitor - both 2nd form Liches . -With just 2 of the 17 liches with 7 speed - Soul Collector and Lich King - in that using an ability with a attack or just getting off two attacks you will have to leave that champ stationary or have limited movement in order to get the speed needed. - Serkan, the revamp hit him hard the lowing of Speed the removal of Surge:Lich as well as the cost just about put him out of most builds -Overall cost of the liches, not including DK, LS or Voil King , went from a average of 76 to 81 nora. -Spells- in the FW faction we are limited in effective offensive spells ad well as damage limiting defensive spells - spells like firestorm, Ice storm thorn collection, bubble of protection spells that can stop, limit movement or have a lasting condition - Anathema is good but one last 1 turn same as festering wounds. So when we leave our chap out there in order to get the double tap he wont get one rounded
It isn't just Liches that are hard to find with a speed of 7. We can't really compare to pre-revamp state. We need to compare to other themes.
Huge issue here is nora cost and speed, imo. I don't care so much that the damage on ALL of our faction's champions, not just Liches, has been hit hard to where we sit in the 8-11 range, but the Nora cost for these champs is 70+ at least! That's a huge difference when comparing to other faction's comparable statistic champs. The divide is more than great... it's impassable terrain.
After experimentation, indeed, the nora cost seems to be the biggest draw-back of liches. Even dark apprentice is over costed. Liches in general are so shamefully overcosted that they could never see play in any kind of competitive setting. Countless times I would set up dark apprentice for leverage, and never be able to use it because the apprentice itself is 71 Firking nora. And then the champ that's supposed to be leveraged in is too expensive to be deployed.
Still think Phylactery Bound should cost 10 nora instead of 30 and reduce you nora gen by 20 next turn when it's activated. So you pay 10 on deploy and 20 on re-deploy. Same cost, just spread out a bit. Plus, if they destroy the Phylactery, you lose 10 nora, not 30.
I'm thinking it should be either Dark Apprentice gets 6 speed or gets a lowered nora cost. Also I find myself deploying soul collector most of the time, it's a lich and it can get you some major nora gen with soul collector and dead eater.
Thing is though, liches have 2 different mechanics - phylactery-bound and Aspiring-servant/lich-born, which resurrect a champion at a shrine or font. Both of these involve a big tempo hit - making speed critical on those champions. So, what speed do they have? 6, 6, 6, 6. Sigh. In addition, having a hero with 6 speed and teleport is just depressing.
Serkan will probably need a look at and is on my list for a later date since Gedden has announced some stuff going on with heroes in general so I'll have to wait on that. As for the theme the have a relatively good amount of stuff number wise (not efficiency wise): 1) Respawn: lich born, phylactery bound. Unfortunately most of the rider/respawn abilities have been tapped pretty hard with the revamp taking these back to very backloaded abilities. It will be difficult to argue to put these back or make them cheaper due to this and it is probably a better idea to work in synergy. 2) Surge: Basically this comes to three forms- Surge spirits, Surge skeletons, and surge Lich. A lot of the heavy hitters can be splashed as one ofs in other theme bgs. The current lich ones benefit from Shadestriker and lichlings 3) Evil Aura: very close to a racial but not quite. This ability benefits melee most and can be beneficial to shift hp to a range unit but in general can make champ spacing challenge. 4) Lich Apprentice, Levarage Lich, Worship Lich - 2 of which are on non lichs. I could see the theme maybe allow for more synergy with Phylactery units to make them less expensive as they respawn. Potentially this could be worked into a theme and have the ability split: Phylactery Bringer- When deployed this unit spawns a phylactery relic Phylactery Death- When this unit is destroyed it leaves a phylactery relic instead of a nora globe. Phylactery Bound - When this unit is destroyed the nearest friendly Phlactery relic is destroyed and this unit respawns there. Swarm Phylactery - When this unit destroys a champion it spawns a summoned phylactery relic This would allow the abilities to go down as you are paying for them in increments. so say 15 for phylactery bound and 10-15 for the abilities. These are just ideas though and would be more suited to a theme revamp associated with a large release. *EDIT* Another really weird idea-> Soul Servants - All friendly humans are also Phylacteries. (similar to how wood elemental eats other trees)
I like the idea of a hero NEEDING his equip to be above the efficiency curve. with regards to liches, skeleton hybrid deck? the revs spawned by the magister are skellies, demonlich has boost and spawn skeleton, TP is a lich/skeleton, LK has surge skeleton 2. rabid from magister can set up black death on reapers. magisters would be better in a lich/skellies hybrid if hoarfrost lich, animated blade, and spectral emissary also had race spirit (to feed his surge).
I think reaper is the only non lich unit I mentioned, but he has surge lich so he could be considered an in theme unit. well, I also mentioned animated blade and spectral emissary as potentials for race spirit as a way to increase synergy with magister. IF those guys got that and you also put them in the deck, then youre looking more like a hybrid I guess. but I think you can also make a lich deck that simply focuses more on their skeleton based synergy. of course if you have a magister (lich) spawning revenants (skeletons) that get boosted, but are also (spirits) that feed surge spirit on the magister... what kind of deck is that? I think maybe liches should be left in that undefined area where various synergies can be combined
I strongly disagree with the idea of liches being left undefined. And I will leave it at that. @yobanchi Those would be impressive ideas if the phylacteries themselves weren't a mere 10 or so hp. People will 100% of the time kill the phylacteries before the champ, often even when its on the other side of the map.
Liches in d&d would keep their phylactery hidden. What if they were shadow spawned 1-4 spaces away from where the lich is deployed? Could even give them font aversion.
I like the phylactery idea. @TeaScholar You have a point that any swarm or pot leaving ability in battle would result in pot death. To combat that possible synergies would involve units with relocate relic or upping the HP of them to 15. However splitting peeps into just linked and spawn phylacteries could potentially work for a future patch suggestion. I'll relegate them to my notes for now ^_^.
