Poxnora has an amazingly high complexity barrier for new players to get over. For years the developers have struggled to rein in the complexity. With the Ronin expansion, they failed. Miserably. Ideally, after reading each champions abilities and stats you would have a clear idea of that champion's purpose. If the champ is introducing a new, complicated ability then that ability is the star. Maybe that ability should be the one ability they have even. Take the Shadowrake as an example. Shadowdance is obviously the important part of the champ. Literally everything else on the champ is unnecessary. Shadowrake could have been 'champion who is super quick, and actually two champions!' Instead Shadowrake is 'Champion who is actually two champions, super quick, anti quick champs, but useless when you first summon it, also some random abilities that change the utility of Shadowrake.' What the hell. What a pile of randomness. Almost every champion in the expansion shares the same problem. There are worse design sins in Ronin though. Champions who combo with themselves are just terrible. Aura Lancer has this cool Lightseeker ability. That might as well be freakin Teleport because of course every other @$^%#ing ability the Lancer has Blinds. Its the developers cheating their own ability cost system. Which makes no sense, yet its true. They wanted to KF melee champion that has Teleport but doesn't have to pay for it. So they made this garbage loophole. It comboes with itself, amazing *FACEPALM* The sad thing is it actually kills deck building too. The Aura Lancer with Lightseeker and no way to Blind needs you to play it with other champions with Blind. A cool way of have two champs with synergy who may not be in the same pre-constructed theme. But no, we have to be bludgeoned over the head with BlindBlindBlindBlind. What Pox needs is more champions like Bloodbow. It's super clear what Bloodbow does. It has a cool trick where it powers up after its out of ammo, which keeps it from being bland. It is clearly meant for the 'blood ball' theme but doesn't go totally insane over it (unlike every other blood theme champ). Heck you could use it in a non-Blood deck, it'd still be OK- which is ideally how most theme runes would be. (Full disclosure: Bloodbow could easily ditch a couple abilities and still be cool.) Anyways, that's what I have to say.
So you are mad that the Aura Lancer is incredibly useful? This update isn't and wasn't meant to be a balance patch. They said that several times before and immediately after the update. The greens said they are going to be going over every single theme from now on and adding several new balance patches.
I think its great that they decided to give the best faction the best units in Ronin. I mean what could ever be wrong with doing that?
The problem with the Lancer is that if it couldn't blind, people would complain that its ability is useless.
The problem is that it has a range 4-6 (magic!) blind that does damage. You can also use two of them in such a way that you blind jump pretty much every turn getting your speed up to 11. Korona can induce bleed, but she can't do it in such a way to trigger bloodseeker. nobody claims her ability is useless. Seriously, this, the <60 point crowd control of the beuracrat, and the stupidity of Amareth's Lexicon has made me wonder what the hell they were thinking particularly compared to the stuff that the other factions got. Poor SP.
Maybe they could make blind attack do no damage and give it ammunition so it has a limited number of uses?
I feel that they concentrated on firk too much almost all the firks are usable but compared to the other factions to other factions they are horrible
I am still trying to work out how strong Firks really are. I like the way they play, but when I play meta bgs of other factions, it always feels like I have so much more power in my hands.
The ronin has introduced runestunes like Shadowrake and aurora lancer that multitask Shadowrake is a quick rune (see his ability bladedancer) but he also has hunter quick. Aurora lancer blinds enemies himself so he doesn't encourage running champions that blind enemies to pull off the combo. TL;DR shadowrake and aurora lancer should be simplified into one defining role (read nerfed)
Lancer nerfed, shadowrake changed to not be a mess. I agree about lancer but I thought shadowrake was a decent rune - role is a fast attacker who makes clones of himself, with a tempo drawback (stasis). Hunter: quick is just bonus damage vs some units, it doesn't define him in any way.
There are plenty of ways to slice through Pox's complexity - few players have made a concerted effort. I'll at least be making a series of tutorial essays on simple BG building, mental methods to learn every rune and ability, and how to learn as much as possible from watching a game. Pox could get away with a lot more if there were easy ways to come to grips with it.
I do have a clear understanding of every champ after reading about it. Maybe you are just lacking in the ability to see this? Do you want to be taken seriously? If so, try to be less whiny and provide some evidence or analysis to your claims because, to me, it looks like you had too much red coolaid, logged on and got skill checked to the teeth.
Stitched tyrant wasn't clear for a while so I'm surprised you had a clear understanding of that champ
Karma is one of the best players in the game. Claiming he's on drugs is like saying trees can talk. His skill is unmatched I wouldn't be surprised if he defeated The Dragon(tiny dragon) easily
there are champs with black death who don't also have rabid. they get used. however youre right. this existing playerbase has no strategic sense. they want champs to play the game for them. they want their power simply by being owned and in the deck. iow TCG players.
The whole part where he contradicts himself constantly and sets himself up for trolling is too silly to be legit.
I was just using the Lancer and Rake as examples of a greater problem. I could care less if they are too strong or weak in game. My post isn't really concerned with balance at all, just pure design issues. Champions have too many abilities, and those abilities don't seem to have any rhyme or reason. That's my main point.
