PoxNora imProvement Projects #1

The next big thing I am doing is reviewing runes across the board for general efficiency issues.

Now, this isn't intended to be extreme nerfs and buffs, but just to correct outliers remaining from the latest cost adjustment.

This is stuff like the Muck Dragon, which has a nora modifier -10 which it clearly doesn't need.

This is less of a discussion thread and more of a "this is what I am doing next" thread so you know what to expect in this regard.

However, if you have specific champions that you think needs attention (such as Muck Dragon), feel free to point them out here. It's likely to get more traction if you can show, compared to a STANDARD (not the top of the line runes), why it is over or undercosted.

For my part, I will be paying particular attention to the following 3 groups:

• Units with less than 40 HP
  • Many of these units cannot utilize their abilities to the same extent as units with higher HP pools
• Units with more than 55 HP and come in under 70 nora
  • Most of these units likely have extremely steamlined kits
• Units with current nora modifiers (in both directions)
  • Some units, such as the Heroes, have current modifiers and those will be staying, as they are a way of making these high cost units with a lot of abilities competitive and playable
  • Other units, however, do not need such modifiers and should not have them
  • Some units with weird configurations will likely retain weird modifiers for various reasons, but usually to prevent them from being way cheaper than they should be for their effect on the field

Example:

Lamia is an interesting example. She is 54 nora for her base stats of 10 DMG, 6 SPD, 2-4 RNG,0 DEF and 45 HP. This doesn't seem unreasonable. She could have about 20 nora in abilities to make her interesting and still be under 80 nora.

The problem is that her abilities total up to another almost 40 nora. So the option we have is some combination of ability recosting, and/or manual modifier.

If we assume that she ONLY has Shrinking Scion, she'd be 72 nora for a potential 14 DMG, 6 SPD, 2-5 RNG unit with Shrinking Gaze when it the Shrinking Scion ability is active. This, again, does not seem unreasonable, and actually sounds pretty runnable. Of course, this means she has no Boon, no Life Siphon and no Soultap.

For the manual modifier, we have to ask ourselves how her abilities interact with her, and how much she can use those abilities to her advantage. Soultap and Life Siphon are even arguably worth more on a ranged unit than on a melee, and Life Siphon in particularly theoretically works well with a defensive ability that reduces her potential damage taken while increasing both her DMG and RNG (Shrinking Scion). Nothing here screams "inefficient" other than the fact that we are talking about 18 + 10 + 7 nora of abilities - which may justify a small reduction.

Reworking her kit so that she's leaner is difficult, as she is already pretty stripped down. Is it possible Shrinking Scion simply packages too much in one ability? There could be a rework opportunity there, but we also recognize that powerful abilities are often the most interesting, and anyone who has used her in the past knows the ability is a fairly compelling one. But is it worth 18 nora? Well, +4 DMG and +1 MAX RNG is about 18 nora on her if she had it on base. Shrinking Gaze is uncosted, but let's say it's about the same as Majestic 2 (14 nora). Assuming that Shrinking Scion's uptime is about 50% and discount for not being able to move, we are looking at, say 50% off the base cost of the buffs... so around 14 nora? This "feels" right as it seems to be a compelling choice of between having Shrinking Gaze up all the time without any action and being able to move with it, or having the extra stat buffs but unable to move? Maybe should still be a bit cheaper, potentially. But let's go with 14 for the sake of this discussion.

One approach could be to force Shrinking Scion into an upgrade path (perhaps along side Shrinking Gaze and Preparation, for example) and consolidate the other upgrades into a single branch of say, Soultap, Life Siphon and Sentinel. This would reduce her cost in the realm of 8ish nora, bringing her to 83 nora - add in the Shrinking Scion recost and we can bring her down to 72-80 nora depending on upgrade selections:

View attachment 1950

 

Crate.

 

Roughly HP/18 per point, down from HP/12.

 

Lamia is an interesting example. She is 54 nora for her base stats of 10 DMG, 6 SPD, 2-4 RNG,0 DEF and 45 HP. This doesn't seem unreasonable. She could have about 20 nora in abilities to make her interesting and still be under 80 nora.

The problem is that her abilities total up to another almost 40 nora. So the option we have is some combination of ability recosting, and/or manual modifier.

If we assume that she ONLY has Shrinking Scion, she'd be 72 nora for a potential 14 DMG, 6 SPD, 2-5 RNG unit with Shrinking Gaze when it the Shrinking Scion ability is active. This, again, does not seem unreasonable, and actually sounds pretty runnable. Of course, this means she has no Boon, no Life Siphon and no Soultap.

For the manual modifier, we have to ask ourselves how her abilities interact with her, and how much she can use those abilities to her advantage. Soultap and Life Siphon are even arguably worth more on a ranged unit than on a melee, and Life Siphon in particularly theoretically works well with a defensive ability that reduces her potential damage taken while increasing both her DMG and RNG (Shrinking Scion). Nothing here screams "inefficient" other than the fact that we are talking about 18 + 10 + 7 nora of abilities - which may justify a small reduction.

Reworking her kit so that she's leaner is difficult, as she is already pretty stripped down. Is it possible Shrinking Scion simply packages too much in one ability? There could be a rework opportunity there, but we also recognize that powerful abilities are often the most interesting, and anyone who has used her in the past knows the ability is a fairly compelling one. But is it worth 18 nora? Well, +4 DMG and +1 MAX RNG is about 18 nora on her if she had it on base. Shrinking Gaze is uncosted, but let's say it's about the same as Majestic 2 (14 nora). Assuming that Shrinking Scion's uptime is about 50% and discount for not being able to move, we are looking at, say 50% off the base cost of the buffs... so around 14 nora? This "feels" right as it seems to be a compelling choice of between having Shrinking Gaze up all the time without any action and being able to move with it, or having the extra stat buffs but unable to move? Maybe should still be a bit cheaper, potentially. But let's go with 14 for the sake of this discussion.

One approach could be to force Shrinking Scion into an upgrade path (perhaps along side Shrinking Gaze and Preparation, for example) and consolidate the other upgrades into a single branch of say, Soultap, Life Siphon and Sentinel. This would reduce her cost in the realm of 8ish nora, bringing her to 83 nora - add in the Shrinking Scion recost and we can bring her down to 72-80 nora depending on upgrade selections:

 

Yea, so yea, negative abilities is certainly another way to go. I am concerned too about homogenizing units towards very similar bland builds, particularly for ranged units which has a lot of base costs eaten up by RNG already.

 

But I hope people can see how these sort of things have a lot of considerations. So not only is it a bit of a project with each and every rune, it's also pretty easy to get things wrong.