Non-Client Non-Balance Stuff

- I totally agree, unfortunately stealth mechanics have a lot of backlogged issues. Domain only resolving if you move "onto" a dmz tile even if a tile appears below you. Some terrain vs effect resolving order of operations issue. So mobility doesnt work or ambush or growing dmz's dont count like static dmz's etc. I love this dmz deck I have but it simply doesnt work as intended due to "features" of DMZ interactions in this game.

 

you forgot about cleanse.
for a theme about life steal and healing having no ways to counter things like inhibited other then soulreaver or bane shift sucks.
literally the number one reason why they can never be meta. ( as their main gimmick is destroyed )
i also agree that teleport bloodball should be more available on vamps. ( also add race vampire to bloodgoyle and blood abhorrent or give us new vampyres that can do the same things as them )
if not we could make a new vamp support that gives it away.

 

I don't want vamps to be about healing, I want them to be about stealth and cunning and charm. Their healing is only sub par anyways, and never supposed to be the theme crutch.

 

Currently vamps under perform because they don't have one thing they are great at, but they are sub par at many things. I think stealth and shadowy tactics could very well be their thing.

 

well vamps lorewise can be about a lot of things. ( vamps have a lot of traits)
and i never said about making them a healing theme.
as they already are one.
a fun to play but weak sauce in-combat based healing theme.
they cheese with sustain have some utility have some units that can reach high damage if the stars align.
but they basically boil down to life siphoning the enemy to death trying to ignore death with blood crest + masochism if they are split and staying alive. ( and bloodballs never forget the bloodballs! )
the problem is they can't life siphon or use bloodballs if they are inhibited or stunned so as a theme they need atleast one or two decent sources of cleanse.
it doesn't have to be passive cleanse like cleansing aura or just plain old cleanse but some form of combat based cleanse that works.
something like after 2 attacks on the same enemy unit a vampyre cleanses himself and the nearest ally. ( it could have a range , it won't be perfect but it'd still be an in combat heal but given it'd probably be best on the ranged vamps)
and also something like a vampire sacrificing between 6 and 12 health to cleanse himself and all other friendly vampyres in range.
( this could be on a new vampyre support could also only be usable after landing 1 or 2 attacks on the enemy but have a super low ap cost like 1 or 0 if thats even possible to code)

 

I don't wanna get to off topic, maybe we could make suggestions about vamps over in the fw forums.

 

- I'd be 1000% more interested in vamps if they went that way...I'm just saying sadly all that Bane Shift is borked and inconsistent and needs to be fixed or its like adding something that doesnt work

 

Spirits?

Their stealth component has fallen off with some of the changes though, I'd rather see that reinvigorated rather than change vamps into something they aren't. Spirits also have a much larger champ pool, I could see working the theme into seperate modules of Stealth, Soultap and DMZ/Surge/Arroyo.

I think vamps are FW's best hope of a strong early theme that can't be bullied and stealth isn't really conducive to that. Though i agree that we shouldn't go overtop with this Bleed component, Bleed is primarily a UD thing and it would be nice if Vampyres could be something unique. There is already some synergy with Bleed there which could be developed slightly in order to improve that synergy for people who want to play splits without making it the only way to play a FF vamps bg.

 

I agree some of the stealth mechanics are inconsistent, I am also disappointed stealth works in funny ways because it used to be my favorite theme to try and make work in ud.

 

Will other abilities which are calculated based on percentages like Reflexes, Amplify: X and Vulnerability: X be changed to work more like the new Hunter: X abilities?

I seem to remember reading a while ago that you wanted to remove percentages entirely.

 

FW Bonus rough ideas:
1) At the beginning of your turn conceal one rune on cooldown then reveal one rune.
2) When a nora globe is collected (by anyone) gain +10 nora.
3) Enemy champions and relics have -5 max hp.
4) +50% enemy rune cooldown.
5) The first champ you deploy each turn gains either immortality, Desecration zone 2, or dead eater permanently.
6) When a real champion is destroyed the next champion you deploy gains +3 max hp and -3 cooldown permanently (this stacks and is retained after death).

 

The conceal/reveal mechanics have generally struck me as a functional alternative to the present bonus. Problems with the exact draft you formulated include how it deals with the implicit random element, and its interaction with non-champions.

I have problems with this one, but player-agnostic triggers on globe collection are at least a neat idea.

Bleh.

Both uninteresting and much weaker than the current bonus.

Would this be random? Problems with that. As for Immortality specifically, that would make Tome of Hate a universal auto-include.

The re-deploy bonus reformulations of the bonus are interesting, at least. Not sure exactly how I feel about this one, but it's cool? Escalating CDR is strange. Obviously makes GY/Ed insane.

 

i really like your 1st idea.
seems like a bonus fw could actually have.

 

The conceal could be limited to champ runes only, it basically shifts the CD more towards the mid/late game but yes it still would have some randomness to it until late game.

Eh, just throwing the main rough idea of giving champions some sort of ability after deploy as a sort of bonus.

 

I mean, the CD resetting would be random, that's my problem with it, unless it targets the rune with the highest/lowest CD or something.

 

I've gotta agree the Vampyre's are lacking in some options. However, the only way I've achieved any status with my Vampyre deck is by making it as able to counter anything it goes against. Specialized decks it will fail against, and I expect it to. I don't mean to poke and nitpick at your ideas Potato, cause they're good. However, Invigorate? We have Moblization. Grant: Evasive? Elsari Night gives Elusive for a couple of turns. Reflex would be cool for making the champions more tanky. I do agree with the idea of Deploy: Blood Crest however. That is a solid relic within the Vampyre theme. Sure it can easily be demolished, but depending on how you plan, you can easily place it in a DMZ to safe guard it for the most part.

The Blood Rage idea is also good. Most games are focused on a champion being focused down as swiftly as possible. Ensuring those kills, and as effective as possible AP/Nora wise. I can't honestly say Vampyres do struggle with this aspect specifically. However, giving them an extra attack at the cost of health would give them more a thematic sense in the manner they're already about life siphon, drain, and blood magic. Over all none of the champions are high in damage anyway, so the extra attack against a bloodied enemy could very well help their scaling issue.

 

Spells and abilities are quite disparate in their function so having a spell doesn't necessarily mean an ability of the same effect will be useless.

Just to add, Elsari Night is a very easily countered spell and you often only get good value from it when an opponent plays into it. I've stopped running it in zombies since it's poor excuse for a rework.

 

You have a very valid point. I only run it if I start seeing a lot of KF decks getting around, since usually I build my decks around a 29 rune locked ideal, and the last rune I can interchange to suit whatever meta there is. I think the spell still works ok in Zombie based decks, but it is rather pointless cause of the whole zombie theme revolving around meat shields.

 

Remove all hardcounters. For example:

eaters/immunities/ca/etc: have ranks, absorb max 14-16-18 damage per source, secondary effects trigger only if damage was completely absorbed

real champ instakills: deal 55 damage
summon instakills: deal 25 damage, secondary effects trigger only if summon was killed
relic instakills: deal 20 damage, secondary effects trigger only if relic was destroyed, revert at least some relics to 21+ hp

elusive: has ranks, dodges 4-5-6 attacks per turn
iron will/fearless: has ranks, reduces effects duration by 2-4-6 per turn
blockade: has ranks, blocks 3/5/7 ap

stealth: has stacks (different abilities provide different amount), detection removes 1 stack per square moved by either of champs, all champs have "detection" within 1 space, bleed/illuminate removes 1 stack per turn, murk removed, each point of damage taken removes 1 stack

cliffing: possible, but applies vertical push instead of instakill

and so on

 

whats the issue with hardcounters? they encourage versatile deck building and unexpected ones encourage versatile gameplay strats, sounds like a good thing to me