Hi there dear UD players and visitors. After discusing the impact of the revamp for spiders in guild, I like to lay out my thoughts here to open up a discusion specifically for spider BGs. As such i want to start with a broad overview and go into specifics later in the post. Disclaimer: I love spiders and Theme decks. So i might get a little biased in the process. My goal is to raise awareness of some issuses that hopefully lead to some quality changes to spiders so they get their old strengh back. Or maybe some new abilitys ... or both I also want to warn you that I'm not a native english speaker. Overview The Runes / Spider Deckbuilding 2 LEs (Cinderpede* , Void Spider) 2 Exo (K'lzik*+, Phase spider) 1 Rare ( Soulcrawler*+) 7 UC (Bloodletter*, Broodmotther+, Ember Wasp*, Flameweb Spider*, Hell Tick, Lavaflow Devourer*, Trap Spider) 6 Com (Albino Katipo, Demonbarb Spider*, Nightfall Spider, Rust Demon*, Scorpic*+, Weaver) (+ means 2x2 champion, * = demon) Most spiders are commen or uncommen so this theme seems easly acquirable to new players. Unfortunatly the few hard to get runes - so called "auto includes" (the stongest / core runes) are the most expensive /hard to get ones, namely: 2x Voidspiders, 1x K'lzik and 2x Phase Spider. 1-2 Soulcrawler - Voidspiders very rare and nearly not obtainable - but one if not the strongest spider - as they currently lack a "tank" - K'lzik Thematically the "leader of the pack" and a strong rune herself, easly obtainable (Theme Deck) and cheap in comperison - Phase spider one of the best fond contestor spiders post revamp, hardly obtainable - Soulcrawler ranged, alternative damage, Psychic jab and soultap, affordable (forging) but expensive (rune wise) Specific Runes for Spider Decks: - Arthropod Frenzy (pounce 2, Leap 2, Retreat 2 for 1 turn) edge case: can make you win if played right but the situation seldon arise - Mass Web (2physical damage + ensnare 1 per spider) shoeboxed: 40 nora for a situational physical damage skill that needs at least 10 spiders out to be mana efficent. - Protect the nest (6 spider eggs , hatching 2 turns+ ) edge case: can generate spiderlings to procc CnC fast, but shrine is mostly far away. most useful if you rely on surge - Arachnablade (basic attacks generate a egg sack that gives birth to 1 spiderling at the end of turn) 2x autoinclude: more meat and damage - Demon Shield (demons gains arrow eater, was once a boon - now many spiders lost demon) depends: as most spiders lost race:demon its a so-so call. It still protects K'lzik and other core runes well - Spinner's Greaves (gain weave web, K'lzik gains pull) shoebox: only good on K'lzik - but she needs the range protection more most of the time things spiders lost - Sunder (Rust Demon) - absorb (Hell Tick) - race: demon (some) - range on many runes (I am sure i missed vital ones) things spiders have - dequip (rust demon) - poison (Albino Katipo) - stealth (nightfall spider) - spin web - a little alternate damage types (2x psychic, 2x fire, 1x Acid, 1/1/1 exluding exos) things spiders lack - detection - relocate foe / pull - hard CC (charm, stun, ... ) - any kind of debuff (sunder, cripple) - strike - precision - breathern (read: more spiders - even for splits) - protection (except: nightfall spider, Void spider) Arisen Problems: The feeling of the spiders changed. They were once pretty neat, squishy, fast and most spiders had a distinct role in their kit. Prime examples were Hell Tick for a brawler with absorb and siphon on top of fire feed so she could brawl in the early game at font contesting and extended her use as brawler in cluster fights. Rust Demon as a support as he could dequip and also importantly sunder to help out his fellow spiders. The Broodmother used to be slow but sturdy and when in the frey she dished out damage while healing herself. Killing her allways gave you 2 spiderlings and the noraglobe (making sacrificing her quite valuable) Albino Katipo was hardly runable. Prevamp the BG even without the LEs and Exos (except K'lizik) was at mid tier ranked viable. It still produced very close games that more often than not expected you to not make any mistake and there were BGs that were not beatable (hello vitality leaching vampire and FW in general). Now they lost a few subtle components in their kit that made the "easy to learn, hard to master" theme BG very hard to play. And more often then not more squishy. The once reliable Hell Tick is easily eaten now when a range support shows up. You are more susceptible to range due to missing race:demon And Albino Katipo lost damage ... so he is still a disrupting one trick pony which never will get the 4 poison stacks on your enemy, ever. It either needs another spider rune that can apply posion too or more survivablity - even with good planing you cannot get the 4 stacks of posion on the enemy. And the low base damage makes high armor targets immun to the poison too. Combine that witht the Rust Demon change of not sundering anymore. Scorpic lost resist physical. Which was once his selling point ... the cheap to aquire tank. Post revamp the spiders lost in comparision to their competion in efficiency (nora to stats), they lost survivability, they lost abilitys and range. Maybe they lost to much. Maybe others gained more out of the focused rework. Reasoning behind the feelings Lost range Demonbarb Spider: the difference of range 1-3 and 1-4 is significant as she is the prime source of dislocate due to attacking. K'lzik: Range 1-2 was better for her due to her size (2x2) as well as propage spiderling that can blocked her movement. Spiders have few range options so her "2nd row attack" behind a small spider or even the spiderlings were a key strategy on her Idea to solve: give 1-2 (easy obtainable) spiders pull on base or as upgradable Losing Race: Demon This is an easy "i cannot equip demon shield". Spiders are squishy. They are weak to ranged units. Especially in combination with the lost range: difficult. others A good thing is that Brood mother lost Ponderous (+1ap per move) and got 6 speed, but paying with Death spawn/surge choice and the Siphon/web choice. I could swear she had 3 armor. And more life. Helltick needs to choose between absorb and Siphon but her kit worked when she had both. Phase spiders upgrade choices were base once. Rust demon lost Sunder and you are forced to take her Acidic Aura. Flameweb spider lost forage (a good thing in my opinion) All in all I get the feeling that spiders have a subtle nerf to their stats which is hurting them in the current competition. For the Future Quality of Life Changes - spin web: +1 cast range - Scorpic as 1x1, give it resist physical back - envenom applys lethal poison (Albino Katipo)(maybe give it to scorpic too?), it should be an additinal ability or incorporated in lethal poison (and not all envenoms get lethal poison) - reworked spinners greaver Ideas for abilitys / future spiders: - spider themed stun (f.e. 5ap 2 rounds stun, stunend target can get "eaten" by arthopods transfering 5 life [LoL]) - different poisons (blinding, stunning, paralytic, wandering, silencing [distract]) - detection - web walk (entering a web give 1 ap, 3 time a turn) - relic: Spider nest (every 2nd turn create a spiderling, 4 AoE web, web walk for all spiders) - a spider with pull on base - instead of a detect maybe a "sense pray" ability (active, CD 2 - AoE 4 for 2AP dectect) ... or give web tiles the ability to destealth non-flying none-arthopods.< Thank you for reading all this. I look forward on your thoughts and input. Sincerly <edit 15/7> added another idea for detection, clearified katipo idea
Like your ideas. Especially giving Lethal Poison to other runes. On paper it seems like a good counter to "mega-champs", but in reality the Albino is kinda squishy. Maybe even a cheap spell that adds one rank of LP(max 1 per BG) will be fun. Some general spider talk: Lack of Magical attack is a problem (ok Nightfall Spider has it, but is he runnable just for that?). Arthropod Frenzy and Price of Victory compete for the same slot. I have a hard time finding room for both. Mindsilcer Obelisk seems like a great addition, but that goes for pretty much any UD BG. I like Breath of Ash in a spider bg.
Good Overview. I have played my spider bg a few times and I haven't encountered any real difficult situations but there are just a few things that are hard to deal with. The most important being detection. I think this is crucial to every bg. Just one unit would do. The lack of range units doesn't concern me as much because I usually find a way around it, although good players will probably see it coming. Use weaver 's pull arthropod on melee champs, although it requires careful positioning. The two spiders (demonbarb and soulcrawler) have decent range and as suggested above, mindslicer obelisk is a great addition to a spider bg. Also, there is a fair amount of variety in terms of damage type (physical, magical, fire, acid, psyhic) so I don't think this needs to be addressed. One thing I would request is if Klzik got at least that ranged attack back as an ability. The queen should be able to throw her spear a fair distance since its a 2x2 unit. Adds a bit of flavor haha. EDIT: Also, in terms of nora cost, I am fairly happy with everything. 5 out of the 15 units have a cost over 70 so no issues there imo. I run the following bg and am trying to find a place for obelisk. http://poxbase.com/#!/deck/C5MCw=CuXC8Kc3VCfXc5yCfBCqys2vs4@s2ls1FsOsAs4Ts1lr2r3TrAE1UeN My 2 cents. ^^
It been months since i played spiders...so i can't give any real opinion on them. But from what i understood... orb of protection should help a bit Mindslicer boomerang x1 auto ( x2 if you want i suppose) if soul crawler still gives enemies vul psy More incorping/cocooning in to x2 maddening echoes.......( this was the reason i played spiders back then ) That's my advice , not sure if its any help but there you go
@PiPPoInZ9 : It would be enough on one more spider. On that point I want to make sure one thing: I wanted a ablity on katipo only that envenom applyes a stack of the posion, not on all envenom champs. I was pointed out that then a UD/SL combo could insta kill any champ I also agree on the lack of magic damage. Nightfall spider is also great for distract and cloak so you can get better positions and surprises ... if nothing else it forces detection of the enemy. @Pheezy: Yeah detection would be great. Maybe a spidery alternative would be even cooler. I will add one to the idea section. Your deck seems interesting, but personally i would run 1 weaver and 2 rust demons. MY post revamp deck is also under construction again. I might post it when I'm doen testing and rebuilding. On that topic: summon trapspider - how is it post revamp? @Agirgis1: in my opinion spiders are a bit weak on the HP department, so mindslicer is a bit hard on them - and i have to admit the "hopping" is not to my liking (kinda unpredictable). But an option none the less. I dont see the appeal of Orb of protection / mindslicer oberlisk. But that might be my inexperience talking. Incorporal/cocooning got hard with the phase spider revamp ... as well as her availability (it was a mini expension Exo) ... and I still miss her in my BG. She is a core piece to get the spider BG a big leap forward. As would be the Void spider. As I mentioned above, these are hard to get runes (now more then ever) but vital ones. Sincerly
Summon trapspider for me is brilliant. Lets say your a melee going up against a ranged unit. You drop a trapspider near the opponent's ranged unit. Next turn, your opponent moves ranged unit towards in range of my melee but then bam, trapspider attacks, ensnares. Surprise! I just find it fun to use. A little heavy on the nora but still fun imo. You don't necessarily have to use it. EDIT: Compare the costs for a normal trap spider (74 nora) and the summon trap spider spell (80 nora). So basically for an additional 6 nora, you have the option to deploy a trap spider at any location on the map and trigger its trap next turn instead of having it at a deployment zone and waiting a few turns to use it.
A change for our spiders. Every arthropod counts for CnC - even if they don't have CnC themself. The discribtion itself wasn't changed (yet). Source: http://forums.poxnora.com/index.php?threads/creep-and-crawl-bug.5162/ Sincerly
Personally I don't think that void spider is at all necessary for the BG (in fact I usually don't think he's that good, he's better now but I still wouldn't spring for one). If you want a tank go for Broodmother. In my build she's 68 nora for 58 HP and can summon a 20HP spiderling on deploy (if the warbanner is out). Generally you shouldn't need too much tankiness in spiders. The HP:Nora ratio on protect the nest is such that you very effectively divide a lot of HP among a lot of units. Usually that gets the job done for me. While there isn't any actual detection in spiders Bloodletter has Bloodtracker and Soulcrawler has Psychic Jab which can both be used to reveal a pesky stealth champ. I would agree that some of the individuality of some of the champs has been lost, mostly on the common/uncommon rarity tier.
