Player Expansion Preview (Protectorate Non-Champions)

If Reinforce is a definite no-go, what about Psychic Ping 2 + Change of Plans? Is that too good? If Body Jumper were better, Psychic Ping 2 + Body Jumper would be interesting as well.

Edit: The artwork is supposed to show a fairy fading away at the center of the fairy circle. I guess the artwork should make sense with whatever effect it is given.

 

still no bastion of mobility (jk)

 

shroud and enduring aura 3. Make my faeries tank them hits!

 

Alternatives:
#1, Stormreader, storm acolyte
#2, Amplify Lightning
#3, Improve Speed
#4, Grant: Jolt
#5, Spark charge and Death Nova: electricity

relocate self sounds cool, not sure how it works though
This relic should have class:Tinkerer to trigger Complex Machine

alt #1, relocate self+Artillery Strike
alt #2, shadowspawn+Sermon (race: constructs)

 

well reinforce has the issue that you can't deploy it except from a champion you want to leave the battle field.

which in almost every faction would be a major down side, but kf has so many ways to keep things alive at the last few hit points, the most common of which is escape magic, but tht puts the champ way out of position.

honestly It's better then the st spell retreat since you get a relic out of it and will likel cost less then that spell, but I suspect it would end up being played just as much

 

i mean, if u escape magic something just so u can use reinforce on it, then you've actually given up nora on those plays anyway.

 

ya and as I edited above the champ would be well out of place from where you'd want to deploy the relic.

I don't see an issue with it on the relic, it punishes leaving champs alive but those mechanics already exist in better ways in ud with sac and retri the price should be in the range of 40+ nora though.

retreat is 35n and you don't get a relic out of it, theirs an argument to be made for the cd's but for the most part that's not even close to the value in getting the relic body off of it. that said retreat imo should always have cost less, and the fact that it's never played is a sign it should cost less.

i'd say cost retreat at 25, sacrifice should be 25 and this relic at 35.

 

Please don't put body jumper on a contesting relic.

 

Fairy Circle would probably be used more than Retrieve but less than Sacrifice. If Fairy Circle were to be released as previewed, I wonder if Fairy Bound would help. You'd be able to use Reinforce on any champion but the relic would be possessed by your opponent if you didn't have a fairy in play to control it. I am not sure, though, if Fairy Bound would count as a new ability or if it would correctly work on relics.

 

The ST retreat spell needs to be reduced in nora.

 

This is basically what agirgis' complaint was. It is a mechanic that already exists for UD. the way the protectorate factions would normally punish this is by falling back and healing. This would otherwise allow for KF to just bum rush their font drop the relic, get the refund then very possibly deploy another unit. A big buff in rush sustainability to a faction thats already really good at rushing.

And no, retreat should stay as it is. It's returns them to the dock with CD 1. it's a big deal

 

Such a big deal that for 5 nora more then sacrifice it's run in a grand total of zero decks over the multiple years since it's creation.

It's one and only use since it's creation is along side azaren to get a "free"* tusk and even that isn't as good as just deploying a tusk with upgrades from the dock

Ever since it's creation I've seen so many devs talk about the cd reduction like it's actually better then the extra nora from sacrifice and I'm sorry but you are wrong you can look at the useage between the two runes to see which is costed incorrectly.

Now that aside you mention but rushing a font and dropping the relic, let's say the champ the relic costs 35 and the champ is 62. This tactic would remove their champ from the board and refund them 31 nora.

They would effectively be down 97-31 nora, or 66 nora i hope that relic contest was worth it

*costs more In total then the basic tusk rune

 

This is really dismissive and uhelpful.

It's easy to compare retreat to sacrifice but with some CD upside in exchange for worse return, but it really undersells how much worse those returns are. The best comparable for retreat is divinity's touch.
The theoretical advantage that retreat has over DT is that you can use your "refund" for making a play rather than redeploying a champ.

What is this advantage in concrete numbers? On a 70n champ we have (70/2-35)= 0 nora gen, 80n champ is (80/2-35)=5n. Retreating Juya is (97/2-35)=13n. The playmaking versatility of this spell over DT is rarely going to create powerturn situations.
Sacrifice, in contrast, can actually be put to good immediate use (70nchamp =30n,80n champ =38n,97n champ =52n) Those numbers guarantee an additional spell ranging from a mindstorm to a drain vitality while retreat maxes out at 1/5 of a gale force.
In other words, that versatility is a mirage.

How then, does retreat compare to divinity's touch (we will ignore the added utility of using DT to "reset" your opponent's champ as well as 0cd redeployment vs 1cd)?
DT resets a 70n friendly for 50n, an 80n friendly for 50n, and a 97n Bastion for 50n.
Retreat resets a 70n friendly for (70n/2+35)=70n, an 80n friendly for (80n/2+35)=75n, or a 97n Juya for (97/2+35)=83n

I would argue that retreat, as currently priced, attempts to reach a middle ground between these 2 spells (one of which is a staple in a faction that can reposition and heal up better than ST does), but in reality it is a poor imitation of either.

 

So the style of ST vs the style of UD can't play a part in it? must just be a bad rune right.

ST has the healing so that they are able to keep stuff on the board and often don't have the need for retreat. THAT IS WHY IT ISN'T PLAYED. not because it's a bad rune

Regarding the relic, if you use it to reinforce a champ that was 62 nora, and the relic costs 35. That means you have spent 4 nora, and have negated 12 from your opponent, literally worth it right away, as well as removing the chance of an enemy getting a globe so that's denying EVEN MORE. for it to ever be a negative nora trade off then the unit would need to be 46 nora or less. which u wouldnt ever reinforce to begin with. Not saying if it's a positive nora trade off then it's always the right move but that can always go a long way to saying whether it is or isn't.

 

Umm st does not have good healing and even if we had fs grade healing we would still not use it.

It's a rune that you spend nora to remove your own champion from the board for your opponent

 

uhhhh, yes it does

 

Where would it be?

Crystal phoenix?

Healing wind?

A few odd champs with heal champion?

All which might make a single entry into a theme deck.

you're saying that grade of healing is actually the reason why st doesn't play retreat? You're crazy if you believe that

Just do the math on the rune vs sacrifice it's easy to see why one is run over the other and it's all in the nora the cd doesn't mean Bane Shift

 

IS has better healing & cleanse than ST.
They play both conscripted warrior and divinity's touch even though they "don't have the need".

 

one is a 40 nora champion that can either do good damage, or tank depending on the upgrade choice, the other is a spot removal +cc or a friendly redeploy. they run both of those because theyre really damn good.

Crystal phoenix, yeti curate, SEVERAL heal mass units, ferren snowspinner is a healer if you want it to be too. as well as abilities like heal wind and a ton of options to increase sustainability. So yes st does have good healing.

But lets be honest it doesn't matter how good it's healing is you would still say it's terrible

 

That grade of healing is bad for what you are trying to say, most of your examples would take the length of a full game to full heal a near dead champ to full unless your bg consists of nothing but those runes, where is or fs can get those champs to near ull with a single support rune in 1 or 2 rounds

to be honest it's good to know what you think is "good" healing,

Regardless though it is pointless to argue that when it has nothing to do with why retreat is not run, it's simple math and board position.

A near dead champ on the font is still more valuable then him not being their.

An attack used to kill that champ is better then them using it to kill something else.

If you can recover the nora globe then it can even go towards your next deploy or spell.

Here's the math 70 nora champ.

Retreat = 0 nora profit and you removed the champ from the board for your opponent saving him ap. Coin toss on who would of got the globe.

Sacrifice = 26 nora profit and you control if you get the globe. Assuming you do add an additional 9+ nora i think for 35+ nora profit. Well worth the loss of board position

This relic at 35 nora would be the same as retreat except you end with a relic body which is relevant and far superior to retreat, and is why conscript is run since the loss of a champ supplements the deploy but the idea of using it as a rush trick is crazy, you'd never come out ahead using it on anything but a champ that was going to die anyway

Both conscript and the relic adds to you board position in one way or another which is why they could see play, the opposite of retreat