No seriously, NKD is silly - 8 nora

https://www.poxnora.com/users/viewprofile.do?u=Entrepidus
When you have that many more DoW points in ST than other factions, then you're basically an ST player..

 

Just as a general point, a lot of the things you just suggested as counters, aren't really counters. acid bomb? acidic greeting? Majestic? lay trap? grant: x trap? poison cloud? fire bomb? etc... these are not real counters. some of them have cooldowns infact the only 2 things you actually stated in that list of yours that are actual counters are imbue stun and precision, the rest are pretty defunct due to their cooldowns handing a lengthy advantage to NKD units.

 

Gotta say I'm flattered that one of my fans, who nearly never posts on these forums, took the time to show me some love in this thread.

You must have me confused with an uncommon leaguer who runs random stuff. Please do not insult my intelligence by listing a majority of utter trash champs and claiming that running them will somehow counteract a single ability, never mind handicapping me in every other game.

But anyway, here we go. I listed some of the most interesting choices here, if your rune was utter garbage I just crossed it and moved on. If you feel I was unfair about crossing out a rune, feel free to say so and give me a reasoning why said rune is actually runnable.

1. Your list starts with acid dragoleech, a champ with 8 damage that hasn't been ran in a single bg since the changes to dragoleeches came through.
2. You deserve every bit of criticism for daring to include Imperator as a possible counter for anything. Shooting myself in the foot with a sawed off will counteract the pain from stubbing my toe. I wont have a foot left.
3. I greatly enjoyed the advice to run a rune with an ability it hasn't had for ages. 10/10 there.
4. You include lay trap on Myx Coordinator, when it's on the same upgrade path as the auto: lay pupae. Honestly, that's just laughable.
5. Same on Myx broodmother, the acid greeting upgrade over improve speed in a theme bg. Why not. And pacifying that champ for a round does not stop it from blocking my attacks. So listening soothening serenade makes no sense whatsoever.
6. Myx Mindwarp with hallucinogenic? How does him not being able to move counter him blocking all my attacks? Seriously, my problem isn't that the guy is running off. Same with serenade. My problem is that the guy just laughs in my face while it tanks up a sidefont the whole game.
7. The audacity to dare include sandstalker dustdevil in two bgs as a counter to anything is astounding.
8. Grant action potion beats NKD now? No wait, I know what you're going to say. AP gen beats NKD right? So I should just DB and quicking every time? Thanks, solid advice!!
9. When you're starting to include stuff like 'Melt', I'm starting to give up on your intellectual fairness.
10. Skeezick warmage doesn't have and never had magic bomb. I don't know what sources you are using, but they're a joke. And blast is coded as an attack. As in, it'll be stopped by NKD. Sure if he would group up his NKD champs you'd take off 2 AP on all of them, though I doubt any opponent who sees the warmage will fancy that idea. If he would put all his champs together for 20 rounds and not move them you could aura them to death as well!

I could write out more individual lines on how some choices are garbage, but I don't have all day.

Bottom line:
Over half your counters are garbage runes nobody in their right mind would run. Claiming that just because a rune exists with an ability, even if that rune is unplayable, does not make it a counter. If Hammer Strike was 100 nora, it would not be a counter to NKD regardless of how easy it would counter them. Trash runes that require you to handicap yourself ARE NOT A COUNTER. Following up on that, about half of your counters that actually bypass it are auras, sand spray, poison clouds or acid greeting. Sure they can't be stopped, but I doubt I'll be killing a lot of stuff with it. Yeah it helps and soft CC is nice. But it's not helping me bypass NKD and the NKD champ is still sitting in my font.


Overall your list was poor and pathetic. You purposely listed runes that have no relevance in this game whatsoever to make your list bigger and make it seem like SL had sufficient options. That's lying to the face and quite frankly, insulting the intelligence of the reader. Let alone all the inconsistencies from taking incredibly Bane Shift upgrades that require to drop the upgrade that defines the champ. Or just wrong info altogether.

If you pride yourself on being a Pox player, playing all factions and knowing what's up you should feel ashamed for presenting this list with a straight face and claiming that these were solutions.

 

I wouldn't say your much of an expert on anything. Quite frankly, as a Pox Council member, this resume frankly looks quite sad. Unless you're playing on some alt I don't know of, I don't feel like taking advice from someone with 0 games played for SL in ranked.

Especially considering that you don't even have a 50% winrate. Even with few games, that's sad. I sincerely hope you're playing on an alt account, because if you're helping shape the future of Pox in the council with this resume, we should honestly rethink about what we're really doing here.

​

 

I thought it was lush/etre and calisk in a changing situation?

Regardless, his post is garbage.

 

I intentionally didn't make a big fuss out if it because I wasn't sure if I was supposed to, but obvious the h0spy leak is still flowing freely. I am on the council, and I'll provide a lil' more context in my pending reply to BP.

 

No, the player council has changed.

 

I bet you the Council is lacking SP representatives.

 

I'm sorry @Entrepidus , I really am sorry to say that, but your advice to burnpyro/list of counters is simply terrible. Not only are most of these not counters, many of these champs would get wasted by any bg in the game currently. Other are inefficient and a poor choice. The fact that you took your time to find all these and didn't realise how terrible many of these suggestions are (lay trap: acid on coordinator? What is wrong with you?) shows that either you have very little understanding of this game and the pvp environment, or you are trolling.

Unfortunately I doubt it's the latter.

 

I'm well aware they're not hard counters, but why do they need to be? Far too often, players assume they need to counter everything 1:1. If you're circumventing NKD or applying enough pressure to negate its advantages, is that not "countering" it?

I think the desire for a straightforward hard counter to NKD in every faction and theme is misguided at best. I'd dare say it's even unhealthy for the game. It's like the argument for having Detection and Shatter in every theme. Not every theme needs vanilla Detection/Shatter because their playstyle will sometimes provide suitable replacements or pseudo-Detection/Shatter.

Fair enough, but first, this conversation isn't going to go anywhere unless you realize and accept your gross propensity for exaggerated generalizations. Criticize me until you're blue in the face (I don't mind), but I'm not going to engage with you for very long if you're going to resort on baseless mudslinging.

1. I've seen Acid Dragoleech in enough Dragon BG's across the various leagues to consider it worth mentioning. I agree it's not the end-all of NKD counters, though.
2. Is Skywing Imperator in the healthiest of places right now? No. Is running 1x an option for drawn-out defensive match-ups? In the right BG, I happen to think so.
3. You mention runes not having the abilities I listed. Unless all of the Rune Manager, Checklist and PoxBase are wrong, you need to check these again:
   • Skeezick Warmage (Path 1, Upgrade 2 = Magical Bomb)
   • Skywing Rumbler (Path 1, Upgrade 2 = Lightning Blast)
4. 49N Myx Coordinator sounds pretty swell to me, but I guess you disagree.
5. Now I understand your confusion. CHAMPION (X + Y) doesn't mean (Path 1 Upgrade + Path 2 Upgrade). It's referring to abilities, in general, not specific upgrades or paths. In this case, Myx Matriach doesn't have to give up Improve Speed. She can keep it while choosing Acidic Greeting, Cocoon or Soothing Serenade from path 2. That said, part of dealing with a NKD champions is isolating them. Pacifying (or Cocooning) a supporting champion allows you to double down on the guilty wall-o-fists.
6. Hallucinogenic can be used to cause the champion to wander out of the font. Alternatively, you can motivate your opponent to pile up AP for you to steal with Transfusion. There are a number of options available here, but I've personally experienced a situation where I burned AP off a NKD champ to apply Hallucinogenic with Metallic Slag (IS/SP Grintmaw Slags) so it would wander through Ooze/Deafening Aura. I was then able to attack it normally. Rinse repeat several times. Obviously, this doesn't apply to SL, but it's one example of creative thinking.
7. I listed Sandstalker Dustdevil because of how quickly he can drain AP from NKD champions. Sure, he's a bit expensive, but I'd consider running 1x of him in certain SL BG's. It's fine that you disagree, but I see potential in him.
8. A major complaint regarding NKD is the amount of AP involved in brute forcing through it. When I was making the list, I didn't list any champions that only provided AP gen. I listed AP gen on champions that also has something else to offer. In this case, Skeezich Alchemist provides both a bomb and AP Gen.
9. Melt is in the same path as Skeezick Alliance and Lay Trap: Fire 3. It's definitely situational (FS/ST), but running 1x isn't crazy if the meta supports it.
10. (See #3). I'm aware that Blast is an attack affected by NKD. As with AP gen options, it serves to leverage less AP for more of your opponent's. Hitting 2-3 champions with Blast isn't difficult. Smart opponents will try to position against it, but that makes their champions less supportive.

Continuing on:

-CHAMPIONS-
Draksar Morph (Metamorphosis) - Given how vocal you are about SL's sources of Magic damage, what makes you so quick to discard a solid source of Metamorphosis? It's even flexible enough to fit into a wide variety of SL BG's

Varu Dragon (Sonic Roar + Sand Spray) - You wouldn't run him even in a Sand BG?

Draksar Constrictor (Damage Aura + Punishing Aura) - Yay for Fury procs, but I'd happily switch to Punishing Aura if I was having as much trouble with NKD as you seem to be. It's not only incredibly effective, but it's not exclusive to NKD.

Draksar Interrogator (Shred Defense) - It's not going to kill anything on its own, but the Lumbering portion helps with minimizing the effectiveness of NKD champs.

Serpentor Paradigm (Precision) - You can have 12 DMG/8 SPD and rarely (if ever) hit NKD 1v1, or you can have 11 DMG/7 SPD and almost always hit. You even save 3N. Again, if you're frustrated by NKD, this is an obvious choice.

Myx Sandlion (Ambush) - The 2 AP lost "blocking" this attack prevent NKD champs from running up to park in your font.

Skeezick Arthromancer (Locust Swarm + Plant Hive) - What's not to like, here? I'd happily run him in several BG's

Skeezick Filcher (Energy Thief) - Magic damage, Shatters/Stuns and drains AP. Why wouldn't you run 1x?

Skeezick Machinist (Fire Bomb + Deploy Gatling Gun/Land Mine) - I've known folks that 2x auto'd him any SL BG they play. Is there a reason you agree?

Vindictive Skeezick (Precision) - I'd run this WITH Skeezick Wrecker, at least 1x.

I didn't "pad" the list. As stated, I quickly threw together a variety of options for dealing with NKD. Some of the runes are independently strong while others require certain situations to be viable; I didn't discriminate. I was hoping this would help spark some ideas for you, but instead you assume that I must be a terrible player because I didn't immediately discard anything that wasn't already well above the cut.

First, let's skip the witch hunt: I do play with more than one account. No, I won't reveal them, and I never claimed to be an expert of anything. Please continue to put words in my mouth, though. It really helps.

Moving on, my first serious effort in ranked was with ST Stealth Ferren. I was growing tired of forum posters discounting my comments because I wasn't ranked high enough in their eyes to have a brain. I quickly shot up to top 10 limited where I stayed for many weeks. I have no doubt I could have stayed there longer, but several things happened that motivated changes.

First, players started to dodge me because they weren't used to the way I played Ferren. The more I won, the less I actually played. Next, players started watching my games to the point that I always had comments afterwards. Certain players belittled the fact that I frequently employed a shrine rush tactic against turtly BG's to one-round the shrine via Coordination Tower. My playstyle became a frequently cited reason for why Ferren Focus was "zomg op!" despite the fact that I didn't have Detection, Shatter or reliable Magic damage. This was during the Aquatics/Barbarian/Paladin madness and AP Denial shenanigans, to boot.

Eventually, the dodging players adapted by specializing themselves to defeat my Ferren BG, specifically, and began to snipe me. Naturally, I was less than pleased. I was no longer enjoying ranked and stopped playing to make another account or two. This account became my experimental account. I try new BG's and stress test specific themes with this account to lend credibility to any threads I make on the forums regarding said tests.

As for my game history, I haven't played a game of any kind with this account since I accepted the council position. I didn't see the point in playing with my own name when I know players like you are entirely too anxious to drag anyone and everyone in a council slot through the mud. This isn't my first rodeo. I've been an active participant in many gaming communities, and I've been successful enough both as a player and as a modder/designer to know that compartmentalization is ideal. You can accept that, or you can choose to continue believing I'm a daft fool.

Either way, I'm not a representative for ST, and I joined with the understanding that I would be providing feedback for all factions. I'm on the council because I was given an invitation that was supported by other members of the council. Either the merits of my posts up until that point were appreciated, or everyone on the council is a daft fool and Sokolov et al are pulling names out of a hat.

I'd hope you're sensible enough to know which it is.

 

I had small hopes that you would come back with a sensible post. And the first like I read is already utter bull. If you're playing acid dragoleech, you're not playing a competitive bg. Period. Fire dragoleech is auto include, acid dragoleech has never been an include in any good bg since the rework. I dare say I'm quite active. I play and watch a ton of games, though not many low level games. I have never seen anyone who played with the desire to win use acid dragoleech as an include. Never.

I'm sorry, but if this is the standard of analysis you provide in this thread and in the council, I'll end it right here. Your understanding of balance is a joke. A quick glance shows that you're still trying to convince me Draksar Morph is a solid include. Like come on, how deluded can you be. It's a 2-4 range with terrible stats at 80 nora. Metamorph is not worth 80 nora of garbage. You can't possibly try and argue with me that these runes are decent when

1. You haven't played the game in 4 months
2. You have never played SL and these runes in ranked
3. You are an extremely mediocre player

Your claims that you have been playing on another account are void until you prove so. Regardless, judging from your history and win percentage, I doubt that it's anything shocking.

Your saving grace to be on the council would have to be an excellent understanding of the game. And you my friend, do not have such understanding. You should re-evaluate what you are doing both here and on the council, because it's quite embarrassing for someone to have such an influence on the game to have such terrible understanding of the game.

And yes, I honestly believe Sokolov and the council members that voted for you to join the council should rethink their statements. Unless you're much more knowledgeable on the other factions than you are on SL, you simply do not have the required skills for the job.

 

This would be great! Zephyr shield costs 4 ap per dodge, so nokando should cost a minimun of 3ap per dodge. So how much nora does zephyr shield cost? Calisk runs Khong Monk and he is the best ST player.

 

I may be wrong here, but I believe Entripidus was bought in for his innovative thinking and talents in other areas outside of skill and knowledge of balance (He's basically like Xirone)

 

Perhaps he should abstain from posting walls of text trying to school veterans about their own faction then.

 

I vote Xuvali to be the SP council representative! I thinks Devilswrath is our current representative and I am very happy with that, however if every1 is getting 2 representatives I demand Xuvali gets a council seat. Its no fair if ST gets 2 representatives and we only get 1, even though Devilswrath is more than skilled enough to count for 2 spots. As a persecuted minority I demand equality.

 

Nohkan Don't

 

Pretty sure ST have 3.

 

As an ethnic minority we demand equal representation.

 

I'm sorry but you had me with transfusion... if this doesn't spot counter NKD then well...yeah