Yeah, except I dont think this ever happens, @Sokolov , because I think essentially the games "tests" if you have 0 nora after your round has started (as in, after you gain 45 nora from the shrine, for example). This is a guess, because frankly I have never seen the champ be destroyed and I have had 0 nora while Lonx Bounty Hunter was in play, and it still managed to live. Or maybe I had 1 mana, dont know. Testing would be cool.
So slow, @Pedeguerra! But yea, I am about to test this now. If it's useless clause it should just be removed outright then. EDIT: Confirmed that it does nothing, because it occurs after generation.
Would people run him with HiddenMZ if Merc was dropped to losing 2 nora per round and went up 2 nora in cost?
Do you mean 14/-2 or 10/-2? Either way, I would give him another shot as-is with a Hidden: Rock build if Merc was changed.
This is a really flavorful change! I like it. As long as Mercenary still credits 12 Nora or more. (My point being you should get 4 or more turns out of him before he starts becoming a Nora liability. It may take him half that time just to get to the fight.) These changes, plus the Mercenary change may make him at least easier to test out. (Since right now he's not even worth deploying to test out, lol) Any chance an artist could do a quick pass on his face in the rune art to make him look a little paler? Just a quick de-saturation of the face would do it. It literally takes just seconds in photoshop. I know the sprite probably won't change since it seems it's harder for you guys to alter the sprites once they're made. So it'd basically just drain Nora? Still painful, lol.
Currently you lose 4 per round and costs -12 it takes 3 rounds to pay off and start losing nora. Losing 2 per round and giving a -10 nora discount would take 5 rounds to pay off and make it less of a terrible early deploy.
Ah, ok -- 10/-2. Yeah, I could see that working out. The big thing is how powerful the reverse ramp is: once it pays itself off, 4 nora is a notable chunk each turn. 10/-2 would be a big improvement.
Lonx Bounty Hunter would appreciate the change, although I dont think its much of a "mercenary" if its taking only 2 per turn. I like 4, makes all those runes a higher risk deploy.
I think 4 a turn would be fine, if it gave a credit of like 20, lol. Need time for them to get to the fight before they start charging.
Ok, there'll be a new build of him with Vampyre, etc. in an update later today (probably) that should hopefully make him more attractive/fit better. There'll also be an overall balance patch later and we revisit before that time possibly, but I wanted to get a quick adjustment to him in before then.
It was a bit of a joke, sorry -- didn't mean for it to come across as snide. I'll elaborate on my point. I don't see Mercenary as a risk-reward assessment on deploy because of how the ability functions. Rather, I see it as a built-in penalty, a penalty for the unit living past round 3 of its existence. If there is any risk assessment, it is so esoteric and contradictory that it may as well be non-existent. Hence the joke: the risk is that a player with a Mercenary champ is good at the game. On the unit no longer being a Mercenary if the cost goes down -- great point, actually, which keys into some larger ideas of numbers and pure mechanics reflecting larger aesthetic goals. In this case, however, I think the detriment to the runes play-ability is harsher than a benefit to design. Like I've said elsewhere, I love this rune's design, I just wish it had a home. I think a change to 10/-2 on Mercenary would be sufficient to maintain the payment flavor while making runes with Mercenary more reasonable includes.
