Just tired of the cheese honestly, been playing this game for years and can honestly say I surrender in the first 5 minutes of most games playing against them. You can't counter death knell, and death benefit bgs, becaue beating them feed into the opponents overall strategy. Not even a range on death knell, just the closest champion, could be right next to you, could be 35 spaces away, death knell does not care. The fw bonus should have been changed years ago, it's a unique bonus, but rewarding players for essentially losing the game, is terrible gameplay for both sides. Remember years ago hearing all the talks and complaints about ride down, you had to get the opposing champ to half hp, and then had to get within range of doing it, most times if an enemy champ had half hp, it was dead anyways. The best part about ride down, was the fact that it was most abused in splits WITH FW because of essence drain. So we changed ride down completely, but left essence drain, and insta kill mechanics. Death knell just sits 50 spaces away, and kills a full health unit, balance I guess ? Same goes for things like voil king Ruubgal, etc, also super glad that dude now has phylactery bound, great add on there. Death knell either needs a range, and I mean a short one, or the champ needs to earn charges slower. Should get death charged 1, or a cap on how many charges it can gain per turn, or make it only trigger on opposing champs, or only friendly champs. So many way to make it work without it being how it is now. Also, this is to the community overall, does anyone in this game play full faction anymore, goodness. Every single game it's some gimmick bg where if I don't have anti summon, anti illusion, you lose.
Don't get me started on things like tariff, opponent either loses 8 nora, or 5 hp on the shrine, again another unlimited range ability. The tariff unit doesn't even have to do the killing to trigger it either. Can you imagine an ability that gave 8 nora globally per kill, or did damage to the enemy shrine ? Either way you are creating an 8 nora gap between you and your opponent, which is almost like being down an entire font.
Out of all the things in FW you could complain about, you choose Aspect of Death? I dunno man, seems like a skill issue tbh.
Maxx gives 30n per kill roughly jsing. Also, opponent losing 5hp on shrine is actually solid counterplay tbh, since it rarely matters.
Essense drain is overrated imo. Run 1x for the option, but you won't use it efficiently many times. The game doesn't take much skill super, you're likely over thinking it. Pox is just a rock paper scissors UD simulator, nothing more. The only truly strong things are the PD legs that haven't been nerfed imo, and a few outliers. Also ST has by far the best globals in the game other than FS. Unlimited range is not the same as global effect. The only good globals in FW are liches, which can be handled by competent players (so basically no1 left) . UD, FS, KF , ST , IS can all deal with DB easily. SL and SP probably have the trickiest time, but SL also has easiest time vs FW besides UD other than DB usually.
I'm only mentioning runes that have little counter play, death knell isn't something that can be countered back like nora gen, and then someone using backlash. It just sits back there, player just summons cheap meat wall, cheap meat wall dies, death knell pew pew. It's pretty silly if you actually think about it bud. Sure you can attempt to rush and try and kill it across the map, get past the meat wall, only to find horrific aura, or a soul strike waiting for you next turn. What would be your counter to an aspect of death behind a meat wall, while tariff is eating away your nora, when your already getting out deployed two to one because of efficiency. Sprinkle in tome of hate and unholy tomb every now and then and your losing 3 hp just for having the audacity to put units out. Honestly though, how would you counter aspect of death ?
Maxx is just as bad in my opinion, but tariff is crazy broken, always has been. Either lose 8 nora, which is huge, or wait for the inevitable shrine rush.
Unlimited range, and global are the same thing, I am using the words interchangeably. Tariff is good Death knell is good unholy tomb is good tome of hate is good chopping blocks dark favor is good You get the picture, these are things that you don't need to be in champ range, or spell range to use, which is why it makes them so difficult to counter, and why fw feels so gimmicky to play, and play against.
Also- Domi cliff is still a thing, another thing that always irked me. Domination is already strong enough, as it is basically the sl spell enslave, except the unit gets 3 ap, and you can move it wherever you want, whereas enslave makes the champ immobile.
In my playing FW over the years i would say FW is Gimmicky with the global damage - but to play FW against any other faction toe to toe FW comes out the looser due to the offensive spells, cleanse, healing, speed, range and just plain attack power the other factions have over FW. FW needs something to even the odds. So in order for Death Knell to get off killing 1 enemy champ first you have to spend 86 nora for a champ that you wont have attack anything capture a font keep it until you are able to deploy again deploy the Cheap meat to be killed you are using all your nora, so you cant deploy, giving up ground and possibly the font If you are able to use Tariff it works on Enemy Champs Dying so if your scenario plays out perfectly you are spending an excess of 200 nora to short live 1 champ and get 8 nora So the counter is to take advantage of the short lived champ, make them kill that affected champ b4 short lived 1 kills it. Run crazy thru the ranks causing as much damage as possible - there is nothing worse than having to kill something b4 it dies on its own not saying that you are not a solid player but.....
You'll have to take my word for this that ive done my research- Tariff extremely good- many other factions have it. Fact is FW is hurt more by opposing factions having tariff. Toll taker is extremely op tho. Death knell is not good. You're likely relying on units that cost over 80n too much. Ut is not good, it's too slow for the reward. Tome of hate is not good, it's just a must include because bazaar is extremely good. Chopping blocks are not very good in ff fw. Dark favor is good. Domi cliff is OP, include it in every deck.
1)tariff- I love toll taker design, and I actually don't find him too op other than also having forage, so he hits, picks up a nora globe, then runs away, a bit much, but still not terrible. The tariff ability itself is what I have an issue with. 2) Death knell- I don't have a huge problem with death knell other than it covers the map, if it was within 5 spaces or something that is one thing, but it is really easy to abuse from across the map. 3) Unholy tomb- Is still very very good, late game, or large maps, it shines through, and since a competent fw player always gets late game, it's still strong. I also am kinda hinting at an underlying theme here, not just abilities and champions themselves, but how they all interact with one another on top of not having a range. 4) Tome of hate- Actually still pretty dang good, bazaar is one example, but it also sets up festering wounds, which is a very powerful spell, that again, has no range cap. 5) Chopping blocks- again, no range limit, sits behind enemy shrine 50 spaces away. 6) dark favor- fantastic for finishing off units that are hard to kill 7) domination- Really the only rune I listed that has a range, still very strong though.
1). Tariff is OP, as i have said many times. Agree, would like to see the mechanics behind it change, or a 2 nora increase to start. Toll taker is op for sure. 2). death knell sucks, it costs too much. Even if it is full map, it still is too slow to really work vs good players. roughly 82n isnt going to work for a sub 50 hp unit, 2x2, and 0 defense (sorry if i got stats wrong). It also can't kill relics, there really isnt a situation where its beneficial. Once you do get it out, its only short lived 2, which is also very slow. 3). UT sucks, too expensive, too slow. It offers nothing offensively, since the chip isnt really a threat in any match. 4). TOH - 2 global damage for 45n can feel decent, but its not something that out classes anything else. I wouldn't run it if elsari bazaar didnt exist, so im just going to say its bad / average at best. Also festering wounds isn't the best in class anti healing in FW. You only ever want to run oblvion hex, pestilence, and skull of decay. Quite honestly i rarely run anti healing because of how bad it is, but when i do I run oblivion hex usually 9.5 times out of 10. 5). chopping blocks suck, too expensive, no healing, not worth it. Easier ways to win than with that ridiculously expensive and fragile relic. FW doesnt have healing anymore outside of garbage, which makes it worse. 6) dark favor: Yes, I agree. It's also good at killing things over a long period of time if you use oblivion hex. I actually think its really good for the game tbh, because it allows good players to fight against certain overpowered things that would otherwise have almost no counter, example Voth Overlord and Icefang, Maxx, theres a few others too. 7) Domination - lol domi is OP.
I disagree with most of this Fw beats most factions i'd say, other than st as they can weather the storm so to speak with all the hp. Healing and cleanse are the easiest things to shut down in fw, festering wounds (global damage +inhibit), skull of decay, dark healing (global range). Fw has terrific range nowadays dead fairy, whisper ghast, lich king, and a ton of 4-5 range champs not to mention the relic that boosts lich range. I'd actually say fw even has a good amount of healing now, but their heal factor is unique and fitting. I do believe they have less damage overall in most of their themes, but they make up for that with units with a lot of aoes, and just straight up efficiency. 1) I absolutely attack things with aspect of death, horrific aura, and soul strike, in a faction with mobilization, you'd be crazy to not attack with aspect of death. 2 Most maps your font cant even be taken in multiple turns 3) The cheap meat isn't just deployed to be killed, the champions are good in their own right, come back quickly, and trigger aspect of death. win win win 4) The goal is to kill those champs anyways, so this doesn't really make sense. Now i'm just killing their units, getting nora back, and killing a free champ from across the map. It doesn't need to play out beautifully, literally just put aspect of death out, and away you go, because death knell has no range. I'm not saying make death knell range 2, but range 5 with a price decrease doesn't sound unreasonable to me. Various similar things were changed like vex's old divine wellspring ability, that had 8 range by the way, and was still too strong. Imagine if it had unlimiteddddd range Doesn't it ever get tiring saying "not saying your not a solid player"..... Some of the best balancers of poxnora were bad players, but they understood the fundamentals of the game and didn't have a bias towards any one faction. Global anything is bad for the game, I have held this same ground since pox began, no matter the faction or theme, most things with global range are a problem, because they afford little to no counter play.
No counter for ice fang, maxx, and voth overlord in fw? I can think of like 50, fw is the only faction where I don't worry about super champs, or champs that you listed. Essence drain, soul strike, death knell, doom, corrupt, domination, glimpse of death, obelus, soul reave, corrupt, I probably missed about 10 but you get the idea.
Nah most of that stuff doesnt work. Of the ones you listed, Domi is your best counter. ED can work situationally, not consistently. The better way to consistently deal with invokes is with champion deploys, usually cutting the healing, then hexing and chipping. In tempo based decks I usually just try to ignore them or kill them inefficiently and win by tempo. Or I just lose and win the next match. I have several accounts with 80%+ win rates, im just telling you what i found the truth to be. ive tried everything, but on your list, i wouldnt run anything exelucept ED, Domi, Obelus (and obelus is not very good). The rest arent good enough : Soul reave, glimpse of death, reapers blade, soul corrupt, death knell doom are all not very good / outclassed.
the 5 to 8 space for a relic, that causes damage, to be effective is kinda useless - who is gonna wait to deploy a chop block within range of a champ just to get 5 damage - it will just be shoe boxed till the end of time. As for Festering Wounds, Glimpse of Death, Obelus etc. they are to easily cleansable so you may get 1 good round of them doing damage. It would be nice to make the direct spells non cleansable. like Fading Relocation, Short lives, and the area spells be cleansable all day, every day FFFW 4 life
I don't think your suggestion of making single target spells uncleansable is needed seeing as oblivion hex is so cheap and effective. Most of the single target spells in fw simply cost too much. Serkans touch being 30 is a great example. Obelus doesn't deal enough damage per proc is another issue. You can't spend 30n without getting a pretty nice payout. Look at ghostly visage ; an uncleansable pseudo - better blind for 35n. Even in a deck with all magic damage u dont run it because 35n is just too much. Same with soul reave really; 40n is just too much for 95% of games. Glimpse of death is too expensive, that's really it. It has a nice anti cleanse feature but it's not ever worth it ; same with rift spirits. Festering wounds probably should cost 30n or give defiled, I don't see it ever being viable otherwise.
