Markoth's Desk (August 18th patch list and next patch discussion)

How about some Leoss changes? I know it is split faction, but is someone handling them? If not, why can't we include them here?

 

I am not sure who is supposed to be handling the Splits but that is a good point. I will ask around and if I cant find anything out I will start a separate thread on the split forums and the council forums and see if we cant get a thread together for them as well. I hear they need some love.

 

I think the first step would be differentiating Dwarven Engineer, Silverclan Tinker, and Dwarven Tinker.

Let's start with what they should have in common:

Even with helpless Dwarven Engineer with max rank of both abilities is 81 nora, that is glaringly wrong. Take away his damage and basic attack like the other two.
The fact they are both 'passive' and usually feature something to do with weapons/relics/constructs should be the only thing they share.

It's important that it's decided if we want them to be devoted to theme, out of theme inefficient or theme optional . Which one we land on changes their design.

Now for how this poxer thinks they should be different:

Engi - This is the guy that makes them! He's the frailest among them, but that's because he spends his time engineering these wonders.
Groble Summoner
Boost, and Build 'Em Tough make the most sense on him.
Since he makes them granting them special effects is also something that could be featured/emphasized or just expanded upon. Train: Damage Shield, Train: Strike, Train: Death Nova: X.

D.Tink - Best repair lady in the biz.
Traditionally Mechanical Crab summoner.

S.Tink - Temporary/Interesting Buffs. Grant: X, Enhancing, Proximity effects.


Suggested Implementation:

Dwarven Engineer
0 damage, 5 speed, 0 defense, 39 hp

Base: Summon Groble PileDriver, Build 'Em Tough, Helpless, Boost 3

First Upgrade Line:
Train: Strike
Command: Charge
Grant: Mobility

Second Upgrade Line:
Train: Death Nova Magical (Make this Electrical if possible/makes more sense)
Superior Tinkering
Mason 3

Silverclan Tinkerer
Base: Craft, Invigorate 2, Shatter, Grant: Electricity Aura

First Upgrade Line:
Boost 2
Foment
Superior Tinkering

Second Upgrade Line:
Grant: Immunity Electricity
Sustain: Unstoppable
Grant: Evasive

Dwarven Tinkerer
Base: Mason 3, Summon Mechanic Crabs, Supercharged 1, Recharge

First Upgrade Line:
Build 'Em Tough
Charged Barricade
Confuse Enemy


Second Upgrade Line:
Spell Charged 2
Deploy Charged 2

I'll probably need to go through this again for revisions, but it's a start.

 

Archangel of Almara
Attack: Magical, Spell Charged 2, Charged: Heal, Loyalty (Take a bit of damage and hp from base to leave get base cost to 75)

Upgrade Line 1:
Aerial Supremacy
Purified
Spell Aegis


Upgrade Line 2:
Charged Flame Fist
Charged Attack
Brand


Isran

Base: Attack: Physical, Inquisition, Righteous Shield
+1 speed?

First Upgrade Line:
Mark of Almara
Shred Defense
Hunter: Unholy

Second Upgrade Line:
Commander Paladin
BattleMaster 3
Rend 1

Magnus
+1 speed?
Base: Attack: Physical, Inquisition, Consecration

Upgrade Line 1(Something Offensive):
Punish
Holy Blade (The ability you suggested +1 damage for each unit healed, 1 turn)
Courage

Upgrade Line 2(Something Defensive):
Ignorance
Resistance: Magical 3

 

they have declare target, on the interrogator.

 

Either the forge weapon ability currently priced at 35 nora needs to lose about 25 nora or the ability needs to get tossed.

That is match a sandbag ability. It's not that great and I pretty much never used it.

I see that Voils have access to improve speed and they are much faster than strux. Put imp speed and phys attack back on Load Armory, increase his dmg to 10, base def to 3, add impen to base or ups, fix the stupid mason upgrade line, re cost forge wep.

 

If you are going to work on constructs next try to differentiate the 4 engineer/supporters first. Just try to retain as much of their original flavor as possible. im also making the suggestions this way since it seems they like to have at least 1 upgrade path be ranks especially for the lower rarity runes to allow for customization of efficiency if not variety.

Dwarven Tinkerer
Base stats: drop speed to 5
Base abilities: summon: mechanical crab, build em tough, recharge, charged 1
Upgrade 1: spell charged 1/2/3
Upgrade 2: mason 3, grant electricity aura

This returns the tinker to the recharge based assemble line style engineer. she can either mass produce crabs or auras or heals but remains limited by her lower speed.

Dwarven Engineer
Base stats: drop dam to 6
Base abilities: atk: physical, summon: groble, build em tough, Defenseless
Upgrade 1: Boost 1/2/3
Upgrade 2: Mason 3, shatter, rev em up

This remains true to the intent of the rune while allowing for some customization in the upgrades to differentiate it from the other summoners.

Dwarven Handler
Add class tinkerer
Base stats: increase speed to 6, drop defense to 1
Base abilities: atk: physical, drive
Upgrade 1: boost 1/2/3
Upgrade 2: Rev em up, regal presence, train: death nova physical

all of his abilities scream hey im a combat engineer. adding tinker allows for complex machines to trigger. replacing forge hammer is necessary since his abilities promote leaving him behind your meat wall and not on the front line. drive and grant nova are as much a tribute to his original design on release as adding a needed component to enhance the aggressive side of construct play style.

Silverclan Tinkerer
Base stats: add 1 def and/or a few hp to maintain its current pricing
Base abilities: craft, shatter, superior tinkering
upgrade 1: invigorate 1/2
upgrade 2: grant evasive, grant electricity aura, mason 3

This change is more for the fact that he brings so much to the table and this will at least reduce 1 ability.




For the constructs themselves the following are changes i would like to see happen. some of these are for flavor, some for balance, and some just so i can quiet my OCD.

Dwarven Catapult and Seige Engine
Add race dwarf

They dont have construct immunities, and im not saying they should; but the name flavor and artwork all lend credence to them having race dwarf, and since they were released with race dwarf/construct i feel they should regain it.

Crystal Golem
Base stats: drop damage by 2-3 to maintain current costing after the ability switch
Upgrade 1: force barrier 1/2/3 replaces death nova

The nova serves no purpose on a tank where as the original design included force barrier and most damage it deals is from either slam into the barrier or from build up over time from splintering. it doesnt need a very high starting damage. another case of death benefit trying to rear its ugly head.

Dwarven Mortar Crew
Base stats: drop damage to 14
Base abilities: Artilery strike, Ponderous, Dwarf driven
Upgrade 1: Basic atk: fire, Basic Atk: physical
Upgrade 2: explosive atk 1, knockback 2/3

This is one of many possible ways to add a basic atk to the champ, maintain its current pricing range and add flavor. now that dwarf driven is working properly it makes a better option than just lumbering and with poderous it will almost never get 2 atks out in 1 turn, especially if the opponent is at all capable of positioning correctly. A basic attack is REQUIRED for this and many units in theme. an arguement can be made to drop the speed to 5 making it virtually impossible to double tap but that is another ballance issue for the devs.

Ironfist Glider
its too efficient. the fault seems to be that reckless flight is too big of a discount but snowballs the problem later into making the unit undessireable after 1-2 uses of gain control. but looking at the problem by nora cost without these abilities the champ would cost about 70ish nora as the ideal price range with flight. prehaps a change in the abilities to the following with less of a discount is more appropriate.

Reckless flight: this champ has flying. at the start of every 6th turn if this champ is flying this champ gains also gains wandering. wandering cannot be cleansed.

this change would consolidate 2 abilities into 1 as well as bump the cost up some. i could see his pricing with this version of the ability being in 66 nora range.

Lodestone Armory
Base stats: damage to 8
Base abilities: Basic atk: physical, construct immunities, throw axe, weapon forger
Upgrade 1: motivate, improve speed
Upgrade 2: equipment boon, shield throw, mason 3
The 2 problems with this unit is a lack of a basic atk and weapon forger costing about 20 nora more than it should. recosting weapon forger to something reasonable like 10-15 nora will negate the need to have unequippable on an equipment enhancing unit and actually make it useable. also many other faster themes have access to improve speed and he needs this back to find a place in construct synergy.

Magnetic Rover
Base abilities: construct immunities, magnetic pulse
Upgrade 1: magnetic hold, bastion of mobility, draw power
Upgrade 2: electric aura 1/2/3

the major issue here is again a gross over costing of the ability magnetic pulse by about 20 nora. fixing this would in turn remove the need for helpless and faithless and overall reduce the numer of abilities on the champ. also upgrade 1 i reworked to be closer to the original designed role of the rune to provide utility in some form beside being just another squishy quasi-support target.

Silverclan Hoplite
Base stats: drop speed to 5
Base abilities: atk: magic, complex machine, construct immunities, enduring aura 3
Upgrade 1: javelin toss, vigilance
Upgrade 2: block 1/2, aid defense

This is a design that brings back what everyone loved about this guy, proximity buffs for himself and allies. we all want vigilance and aid defense. i could even settle for 1 or the other but this design would make me ecstatic.

Silverclan Protector
Upgrade 1: Barrage 1/2/3

this would allow some control over build efficiency, instead of being stuck with either an expensive build or a sandbag option that is back end expensive.

Turret Team
Base Stats: increase range to 2-4
Base abilities: Basic Atk: physical, Complex machine, turret team, unequipable

this is the starting point to fixing the lack of a basic attack for this champ. if the range change and basic atk raise the cost too much perhaps replacing unequipable with dwarf driven is an alternative drawback to lowering the cost. also the ability turret team needs to be fixed due to the fact that only the weapon smith is being deployed and not the handler. if the ability is working fine as is and is considered in a good balanced state then the description needs to be changed and the cost of the ability lowered some.




and thanks for reading my wall of text.

 

One minor thing is that Grintmaw Singer has Distract as an upgrade option on both trees. I don't know if that's intended, and since it isn't default, isn't harmful.

 

Sounds like a "bug"/oversight to me. Any suggestions on an alternate upgrade or what tree the upgrade should go on?

 

I agree with almost all of that sassy.

One thing that hurts strux midrange. Wheelchair is just too costy, could trim some stuff off him. I like his turret team idea too.

No basic attack is really terrible when you can get one for zero nora and not having none gets you no discount.

 

I don't know what it had prior to the revamp, so I'm just making a suggestion out of the blue. The other two abilities on path 1 are council spells and relocate relic. Path 2 is Motivate and Farshot. In my mind, path two is attack related, and distract should remain there. Upgrade path one I could see putting either shatter or a level of damage shield Sonic.

 

the grint singer should have call to arms to replace one of the distracts. its an ability it used to have and its the only one i can remember that it used to have and doesnt now.

 

Would you still replace distract on path 1?

 

Barbarian Guardian

- This guy needs stone chief if we are going to keep this chief wonky silliness. He is the guardian of these m'fers after all. Currently the Stone chief options are exotic and legendary.

- Battlemaster upgrade line is fine if not boring considering Barb. Commander has it. Since it has synergy with nexus aura its not a deal breaker but Ill make an alternative anyway.

- Defensive attack line is lackluster and rare champs shouldn't have 2 upgrade paths with 1/2/3 rank bland upgrades. Drop defensive attack in favor of this new upgrade B path.

Changes:

Add Stone warchief to base (add cost to base)

Upgrade path A : Grant: Evasive, Reflexes 2, Physical resist 2
Upgrade path B : Aid defense, Guarded: Barbarian, Protective

 

Barb Changes ( Discuss and correct as needed) for design reasons not just power level.

Abilities:

Battle Leader: When the ability changes hit, if this isn't on the list to be made cheaper( about 10 nora cheaper) it should be put on the list asap. If other abilities like BM, Commander, Boost etc are getting nerfed/made more expensive then the final cost of this can be changed. However it needs to be cheaper then the passive AOE/global instant buffs. ( Note: BM at its current price is a bit too cheap just like the rest of these types of abilities that add damage+stats. Defender is , imo, maybe the only balanced one)

Warchief Ingratiation: Currently it has 4 champions where it gives its single target max buff. Bolts, Zedin, and Bastion. I propose that it works similar to Honorary Sigil in that it adds a new Warchief tag, that gives no abilities, so that it can work the same on ALL warchiefs. The spell would no longer give Fearless and Rend 1-3 to all champs in exchange for being better on the current/future blood chiefs thus increasing the total pool from 4 to 8 champions who get the full stat buff per cast. If you do not understand what I am saying let me know please and I will break it down.

Warchief Ability: right now there is a bug that is having the warchief abilities bounce even while other warchiefs are out. The clause in the text either needs to be removed or the ability needs to reflect the text.

Call to Arms: Is currently 4 nora, if this is on the radar for a price hike ignore this. If not, it most likely should cost 6-8 nora as lowering the price of a race champ per attack is very strong especially in a theme that has access to 2 ok-good units with it, and hopefully more in the future.

Boost X: is on the list I hope, so I just want to call it out again. The simple fact you can not give a champion ( charger) race: beast like the other versions of him/other riders have do to power level issues is case and point for bad design.

Resurrect: Nothing to do with barbarians but just say that on Poxbox rank 1 and 2 do the exact same thing with a price change though, so might be worth mentioning to the devs.

Champion changes:

Barb Elite:
Execute replaced by Battle Leader

Power attack and Execute on the same champion, when they do not stack, is a shame. You should remove Execute in favor of some other ability that encourages the champion to take multiple upgrade paths if able. If battle Leader drops to down to 5-6 nora his build would go up by 1-2 nora while synergizing with bravery/brutality and power attack along with enhancing the themes combat based buffs and increasing its ability to combat swarm/spam deck types in a theme unique way.

Brutality Barbarian:
Race: Demon Removed
Thirst For Battle replaced with Blessing of the Fallen, Roar of the Fallen, or Grace of the Dead.

Mechanically, Race: Demon adds nothing to the champion, and split IS/UD is no longer a real deck for barbarians. Like wise, a champion that loses hp, from a low starting pool, with 0 base def, isn't the best Thirst for battle style champion. Currently it functions oddly as well as Manic Procs after thist so you can kill the champion and buff despite that. The suggested options for replacement punish the other player/help you when your champion dies which works with the on death aspect of the theme.

Plains Savage:

No ideas here. Just wanted to poin tout how crap he is compared to both Charger Knight ( which is now a barbarian too, can we say 2.0 version?), Mounted Kinsmen, and heck even the Fist who is like a 3.0 version of him. All just make him look like crap.
Ironically he has gone UP in nora sense the revamp hit to a flat 100 nora for a 8dmg, 1def, 42hp champion with easy target. There is almost no way you would run him, despite any changes that were not dumbly OP, over Charger, Kinsmen, or Fist.

Ghoul Hunter:
Hunter: FW and UD replaced by something to compete with Hunter: Unholy ( Sending Hunter: Unholy to base with a new upgrade could be a better option too)

Just reading through the list and noticed that he only gets 3 nora cheaper for not taking the combo ability . Either Hunter: X abilities are not priced correctly, or even with the all of faction X vs race Y/Z isn't much of a choice. Thoughts on this one as he is a decent cheapo champion imo already?

HawkMaster:
Rend upgrade line replaced by Retreat 1-3

Rend seems redundant do to hawk attack, and you do not engage with this champion unless you get the kill that turn 90% of the time anyway. Now it can get out of tight spots or dance into the back field with no price change at rank 1-2 and +1 at rank 3.

Fist of Bastion:
Ride Down replaced by Battlefiend

Just wanted to throw this idea out there to see what people thought do to the hate on Ride Down. In theme, IS in general too, we can boost stats fairly well so triggering it wouldnt be much of an issue. That being said, this ability is dumbly powerful s it might require a more extensive redesign to use it. Just a fun ability that is under used imo.

 

definitely put it on upgrade 1

 

didn't see this highlighted in the last 2 pages. not sure if had been point out.

Interrogator has the ability Punish on already on base and in the 2nd set of upgrade she has Punish too.

tried duo Punish but doesn't deal twice life loss.

 

Righteous Deflection needs a look at:
I attacked a dwarven king when it had Righteous Deflection on it. It got reflected, that part was fine (not entirely sure how the dmg is calculated but hey it reflected). But the units around the king all got their Warcry buff (which basically means I gave his units 3 ap). Warcry states its only triggered when the king attacks, so I was surprised when reflected dmg also triggered the warcry.

 

Had post in split forum but since he is formerly from IS.

For Magus the fallen,
Propose adaptive: Ironfist & adaptive: FW be put into different set of upgrades so both can chosen.
He is a fallen paladin FW/IS hero who has access to power from both side!!

 

Construct/grintmaw changes:

Earth Elemental:
Need race construct, domain base, +2 damage base.

This would allow him to fit into a construct and grintmaw decks aswell as making him a decent stand alone harrier unit for the average ironfist stronghold deck.

Lodestone armory:

Scrap the weapon forge concept.

Remove Weapon forge,remove basic attack. Shroud, throw axe, shield throw 9 damage base, 54 hp base

First tree:

stat bonus defense- 2,3, impenetreble

second tree:

Noble sacrifice, improve speed, mason 2

Makes him into the combat support unit that constructs need. With out a basic attack he would become a make shift ranged unit that is cooldown based, but still potent and also tanky.



Magnetic rover:

Pathfinder base

Its useless outside of being a planar hold unit. If any other champion has this ability(in the future heaven forbid lol), and doesn't look like this thing, then It will need buffs in the future

stone colossus- Bastion of courage removed for escalation or colossal.

surge dwarf as a 3rd upgrade in protective, tremor tree.



Siege engine:

Siege engine removed, artillery added on base, siege added on base, defenseless added to base.

It needs to be able to ranged attack.

Animated Armor:

Assault and weaken spells need to be put in place of his defensive attack, that ability is just terrible.