Well, I can say now that I have played enough with Nids to have something more than first impressions. As far as I can see, Nids are pretty cool and the thought process behind them is flavorful and functional...HOWEVER, they are currently being crippled by some major problems that have honestly not allowed me to win a decent game with them yet (against a high exo or limited opponent). So anyways, on to the problems, from most to least critical, in my opinion. GENERAL ISSUES 1. Dogpile does not work, and is too expensive for what it does. At the moment dogpile does nothing, has the wrong tooltip, and is way more nora than it should be. 6 nora is too much for +1 damage per stack when Sunder is 8 nora and gives -2 defense for each hit (essentialy 2 stacks of dogpile and not race limited). Far more than any other point, this is the true dagger to the heart of the theme. 2. Djinns are way too expensive. Djinn/Nid hybrid decks have a hard time working because you are going to be taking a tempo hit to deploy any of these guys, and none of them get into the fight fast or are particularly efficient. My personal favorite fix would be to swap Deflect: Sand with Initiative 2 on Peaks Dao with the respective nora adjustment to return him to some of his previous role. INDIVIDUAL CHAMPIONS 3. The more I play him, the more I realize Hyaenid Spearman is rather useless now. He has decent range but low damage, wastes cost on the flavorful but irrelevant Dead Eater (a good ability, but I'd much rather be swarming with Instigator), and has no good options on upgrade path 1. I like that he has a certain ability to stand up to melee attacks with Cackle, so my fix would be to go for that and give him +2 damage and +1 Def, range to 4-5, swap Dead Eater with Stab on base, and change upgrade path 1 to Dead Eater/Bola Attack/Cripple with the appropriate cost change, but anything would be an improvement really. Help the original Nid! 4. Hyaenid Stalker's cost and conflicting abilities. While not a priority due to being a hard to get rune, Stalker is just all over the place when it comes to abilities right now. His surviveability comes from stealth and Scrapper (a 15 nora ability by the way), but you want to use him to Assassinate (a 10 nora ability)...which of course doesn't trigger Scrapper and makes him a sitting duck that turn. I think the easiest suggestion is to switch Assassinate with Dogpile on upgrade path 2 and adjust cost accordingly. That way players could customize him a lot more in playstyle. 5. Peaks Dew just sucks. This thing is so far from playable that it isn't even funny. For starters, really needs more than 5 speed and to lose the useless Dive. Not really sure what else it would take to make him runnable, but he really needs to change. 6. Hyaenid Bulwark is too expensive and doesn't provide much to the theme. I really don't know what makes this guy cost so much other than being a massive pile of stats (not that that's a bad thing), but losing some stuff for a price decrease or a utility increase is needed to make him interesting again. If anyone else has any more comments or suggestions, I'd be glad to hear them, hopefully we can draw a dev's attention to at least the most pressing issues (Dogpile). Please keep the thread civil, this isn't about raging: our theme still works, it's just suffering from some flaws. Tl dr; Wall of text, Dogpile is broken and costs too much, lets give Nids a little push in right direction.
Maybe I'm thinking about it wrong, but it seems like the Sunder and Dogpile comparison isn't as 1:1 as you seem to think. I think it's because of how much higher Dogpile stacks could potentially go. I'm not saying it shouldn't have its cost reevaluated, and Sunder is the closest comparable ability, but how common an ability is, how easily it's applied, and how many stacks it can reach are all important aspects of the pricing evaluation. It's moot until they fix it, though, as any amount of nora for a busted ability is too much.
Agreeing 100 percent on the Spearman as I mentioned this in another thread.He lost freaking loyalty ok great ,he lost an ability,they were cutting those but for the love of Pox WHY did you leave his damage to friggin 9 understand ability loss due to the revamp point of lowering abilities but jeesh this guy is a 9 dmg 6 speed champ.Myself and other Sp players liked the old Spearman and many used him outside of hyaenid decks because he used to be fun especially working in hunter pairing style. 2 together tag teaming. Please give him either loyaly back or raise his stats to something better than throwing sock puppets at his enemies.I miss you Spearman Edit: I forgot to mention that Spiritseeker lost Frightful Blows.I thought the whole point of him having healing deficiancy was that he was effective and this balanced out this quite nicely but now lets make him wayyy less effective but still give him HD on base.Noy saying he is sucky or anything but am sad regardless but the Spearman is a valid point and does need fixed.
I miss pilfer,it was better than having to include non champ options..I miss you spearman Goes to listen to "Its so hard to say goodbye" by Boyz 2 Men and pour a 40 for spearman.I still love nids though Hoping to get a new one in the next set release.Would love that.
crupz didn't either or he never would have agreed to it You could also use it to recycle staff of ascendance after intensify proc'd. It took way to long to be used in a ranked game but it was lolzy as hell to do campaigns with 11 range spearman.
I am not very strategic and still learning this game..jeesh should ask you how to make my Nid deck decent.Granted its setup for dailies and gold farming single player.Needs to go take a pic then maybe you can give me advice.
Swap one avalanche out for lightning storm since they both have situational times where they are insanely good. Drop bad blood, 1 nublins pies, 1 tempest crown. Add 1 cleansing emerald (Staple in all SP decks), 2 thunderhead totems. Personally i'd drop 1 of the sauros for slavers whip or harpoon since you shouldn't ever need 2 bodyguard units in a campaign farming deck.
Got Iajabmanka, he dcd and my client bugged out (his turn never ended). Had to surrender. Yay. At least my internet is working.
Thank you nebron,yeah was looking at lightning storm but wasnt sure.I do have a emerald thing so will add that rune.Just ran 2 pies to get epic battle bonus anyway so will lose 1.Thank you for your advice and any advice on making this competitive would be great cause I plan on playing after getting a few more things.Am a FTP player so far but have accomplished quite a bit in 2 months its just a long road.
Aww man that stinks..but it still means you can get back in the ring and fight.Hope you win your match.
