(OLD) Next Patch Feedback Suggestions

So give shroud to seductress. Mechanically, it may not make sense, but thinking on how it would work; It's kind of hard to focus on what you want to hit when that lingerie wearing piece of eye candy is in your line of vision.

@Shimaru I don't think either of us is going to step back from our points. I'll just add that axing it is as terrible an idea as keeping it like it is. It's not overly complex, it's just poorly costed. 1n and bam, it's worth keeping. It's not on the level of Ichor, or Rover, or Blinking, or other abilities that were just terrible decisions to implement.

It's an ability that provides a discount for not being directly impacting. It doesn't take a college degree to figure out, and it's likely not as hard to change as you're making out.

And the chess analogy was quite some exaggeration, but that's the direction you head in when you start shaving all the 'blips' out of the pile. I'm not just thinking about veiled flight here, what about Ravish? It's hardly worth using now that swarms are summons, other than gimmicks or when you're lucky enough to have an opponent unable to finish off a champion. It's only on one unit, and likely never sees enough play to warrant keeping. It's flavorful, and does the job of cast:repurpose better, but hell, why keep that ability when we can just put repurpose in a deck, and it does the job better?

That's what I'm fighting against. Veiled Flight might not be big enough to warrant changing right now, but it's important enough to flavor, in my opinion, to at least keep around until we have the time to fit it in. Yes, that means we probably wouldn't be using the seductress any time soon, but it's not like she's filling out that last slot to make a fully viable witch deck.

We can focus on curse. I think it's fine as is, it just needs more ways to interact with it, but then we get into making new abilities, or risk breaking the game to the point that it ends up just reverting back to how it is.

Curse stacking would be fine, but then it can't be applied by Elsari Coven, unless it applies a stack per coven, in which case you're shutting champs down probably worse than those god awful AP denial decks that pop up once in a while, without even needing the extra pieces. Just a couple of witches, and no positioning at all.

Stacking curse from curse attacks on top of the Coven curse could work.

And I saw getting rid of the -1spd as an idea, and I disagree on that approach. If anything, I'd get rid of the damage/def modification, and change it to -2spd. Maybe cost the ability up more. Witches are about control, and nothing controls a board better than denying AP. (Just not on par with those disgusting Rover/Equipment decks)

 

Curse can't stack because of the damn spark crone. Back in the day curse stacking was pretty much a thing until that came into being.
You went from needing champs with the curse ability doing 50% damage to one champ to champs doing 100% attacks, being able to double tap, and having multiple easy sources and all of a sudden all your enemy champs had 0 spd pretty easily.

Thus the nerf to curse.

In my opinion the Curse ability should be reduced in nora cost but not necessarily removed.

 

If it stacked, I'd say no more than two. One application possible from Coven, one from the activated ability. Could rename the activated ability to Jinx or something.

I'm still of the mind curse and disease both would benefit more from alternate means of boosting their potential. Not sure if the thread is buried here, but things like Shocking Curse (Applies X electricity damage and Jolt Y to cursed champs in Z spaces), Slowing Curse (Champs with cursed in X spaces become Slowed Y).

Augment Disease: Champions within X spaces that would resist or be immune to disease damage instead take magic damage in the attack amount.

Pandemic Disease: Champions within X spaces that would become diseased instead become Virulent for the same duration. (Virulent: this champion counts as diseased, and loses hp equal to this duations effect each turn. While Virulent, the champion is infectious)

Things like these are pretty straight forward, if wordy, and I believe would cause fewer issues than Amp. Amp is a lazy 'fix' for people that only know how to cram a whole lot of the same into a bg. It's the same reason baddies got the cauldron created in UD. In FW, it's slightly different, seeing as how just about every time Alt damage comes our way....it's disease. Some frost, some lightning, but almost always disease.

Anyway, that's likely not going to happen until we get all the dust settled. Which is why even in my daydreaming, I'm trying my hardest to think small enough to be possible. Powerful enough to warrant change.

 

Question, would Hidden: DMZ remove Seductress from stealth that she gains from Shadestrike?

If so, it makes shadestrike a lot less useful.

 

Answer: Yes if she left the DMZ it would destealth her.

However, this does stealth her at end of turn which does combo with ambush.
Shadestrike is another procure of coven.

 

derp, ignore me. I confused Shadestrike with Shadowstrike.

Also, get the definite impression you are probably not going to add BloodBind to Enchantress. I don't mind the idea being rejected, but since it fits the vampyre theme and the witch theme I am curious as to why not if nothing else ^^

(Although I appreciate it is more expensive than Blood Magic, though I don't see why)

 

I would think that it would be considered a unique ability for the bloodbinder count.
also may cause issues with chain binds IMHO.

BTW I modified the OP.
Added a sprinkling of rabid to the mix.
Also I think curse can easily be fixed by changing the range to 1-6 and reducing the nora cost.
That easily makes it a cheap harassing attack option which is what it originally was before the stacking was removed.

I do not foresee the stacking or X stacks being brought back as the shock curse from crown will always bring it down.

 

On the bloodbind subject then, could you raise the issue of either its cost or the starting cooldown with Gedden? Because it really doesn't need both. The starting cooldown is more likely just there because it was there in the old incarnation.

(For the record, ok with most of the changes now. So my silence is basically approval. That said..)
Not sure about the Blood Witch. If nothing else she seems pretty bland. Plus I dislike the idea of getting rid of the only named Banshee in our faction. Been a while since we had a new undead archetype ^^

For her:
Still a fan of Wail of Grief. Fits the theme and the loss of all AP works with curse's -1 spd.
Sonic Roar is also an option for her. It's Cackle on crack for only 1 more nora.
Thematically capable of having Final Word (upgrade option?)
Declare Target is another option, since a Banshee basically marks people for death.
Duel is a possibility for similar reasons, picking a target to die. Keeping her blood theme, Duel and Bloodseeker would make a pretty badass combo.


Black Ops
For non humans this is pretty weak. It gives you an extra attack if you manage to get it on a 7AP champion hitting someone who is cursed/hexed/diseased. But other than that, no reason to drop it for 20 nora.

Compare to Burning Crusade:

Cast on a non-Human/non-Paladin
Burning Crusade - 30 nora
Fire Aura 3 + Brand (lots of potential damage off of the attack chain)
Black Ops - 20 nora
Forsaken Exploit (+2 damage on the attack chain based on conditional effects. Grants an extra attack if you happen to have 7AP)

Even for 10 less nora that doesn't seem quite good enough.

Cast on a Human/Paladin
Burning Crusade - 20 nora
Fire Aura 3 + Brand (lots of potential damage off of the attack chain)
Black Ops - 20 nora
Forsaken Exploit + Detection 3 (+2 damage on the attack chain based on conditional effects. Grants an extra attack if you happen to have 7AP. Spot Detection.)

These are certainly closer, although now Burning Crusade is the same nora cost.

An extra ability might be Afflict 2. More potential damage than Brand, and makes it a more viable option on a unit you are sending into the fray, as, even if they kill him quickly, the spell will have caused damage to an enemy. Maybe up the cost to 30.

 

I think witches should have more witchy abilities(as well as better stats for their price) that affect their opponents nora/spells/stats:

Council Spell Sap: Whenever your opponent casts as spell they lose 5 nora. If your opponent does not have 5 nora their shrine takes 3 dmg. (Kind of reverse of the ability council spells)

Brand of the outlaw(could be renamed to cursing strike and just give curse)
Corrupted Nora
Spell Aegis
Weaken Spells
sapping blow
hexing blow
jolt/burn/poison


I usually hate doing these suggestions because they're never really implemented but maybe someone else will like them and fully develop a valid case for them....


Either way I think the prevamp witching hour was much better. I also agree with the suggestions made about the wretched witch.

 

Modified...

@Demthedark I like the idea of hexing blow and there are a lot of good new abilities that could go on witches in future patches or expansions.
For weaken/Council spells I'd see those abilities more on something like Sarinda.
Unfoturnately I've targeted mostly common/uncommon/rare for now but hopefully legendaries will get tuned later on after the themes are somewhat playable.

 

Posting from a cellphone sucks, although after so many years, I still love my potato nokia.

On topic: most changes seems ok. My biggest objection is still curse.

I previously pointed the extra range was the only good thing about it. Enhancing that aspect while leaving the rest as sucktacular as before wont fix the ability.

I suggest removing the additional AP requirement and if possible to take it out of the attack chain.

 

There is no additional AP requirement.

Another idea would be to make this a basic attack.
Attack: Net basically grounds someone for 2 turns.

Attack: Curse- This unit makes a magical attack at it's range. If successful, target becomes cursed 2 and if it was already cursed it takes an additional 5 dmg.
4 nora.

Replace all curse upgrades with Hex ranks instead.

just spitballing by the way.
I still think a low cost 1-6 range 50% with 5 extra dmg is actually quite good.

 

Both sound nice.

For the record, I meant Afflict for Black Ops, not Blood Banshee, though it suits her.

 

Can some firk become witch's, they fit the theme.

 

Thoughts in sickly blue-green

I think the ability has been so sucktackular, you've missed that it doesn't have the +1ap that other non-basics have. Even went in and tested, and it's 3ap/5ap.

Just going 1-6 might not be enough, but maybe with the cost decrease, it wouldn't be so terrible, even in light of how powerful some other non-basic attacks are in the game.

Yobanchi beat me to it

 

@Mercer Skye
I think the seductress could just go the stealth route over the control route (though she can still control quite well with charm, snare and shadestrike cursing).
I should point out on her range. All of her secondary upgrades will disengage her, allowing her to reposition without additional cost while also making her safer.

Upgrade Paths:
Domain: DMZ grants Mobility, so this option gives her a small damage and defense boost and lets her reposition without charming. A good combo with Abash, since she can't use Abash actively. This is a good aggressive defense build.
Rabid 2 is the pure self-damage option. Better damage than Domain, but without the added defense and mobility. I'd probably use it with Charm 3 for mobility and defense. Obviously has the added benefit of inhibited. This is a good pure damage build.
Mark is her allied-damage option and can let her deal good damage without having to reveal. The extra time stealthed would let Flourish cool down as her secondary ability for strict control usage. This is a good support build.

The only downside I see is that Ambush will likely not trigger Shadestrike. But she can't have it all, and she can hit them next turn, after all, they are engaged. And if they are charmed and not engaged... they're snared

 

And I won't argue with the viability, I'm just arguing with her becoming a combatant over a controller. I'll use her either way, I just don't like how it looks.

 

I'm just awaiting the next patch discussion, since witches don't interest me. xD

 

What if curse was the same as it is now but had no cooldown?