Having fun with it so far, might still swap things around. Not a fan of the construct Hawks, but might include them in the future. Core runes: 2x Forest Lerper (startle, stealth) 2x Ranger Elite (Combat Awareness, Arrowshot) 2x Corgi Ranger (Battle Leader, Arrowshot) 2x Spikewood Abomination (Entangling Attack, Unleash) 1x Anaru (Flanking, Pounce) Support Runes: 1x Nectar Fairy (Abash, Shroud) 1x Snake Charmer (Camaraderie, Heal Champ 2) 2x Vashal Quillquip (Provision: Utility, Strike) Utility Runes: 1x Trickster Fairy (Shatter, Entangle) 1x Skyshear Pegasus (Init 1/2, can't decide on that one, and stun) Current spell choices: 1x Balancing Act 1x Shambles 1x Fan Faire 1x Grimlic's Bane 1x Herbal Antidote 1x Inhibit Power 1x Petrichor 1x Strategic Retreat Current Relics: 1x Aurora Banner 1x KF Banner Current Equips: 1x Burning Oak Seed 1x Frostcall Quiver 1x Honour Coin 1x Elite Blade 1x Centaur Banner (I like banners) Ideal 1st turn drops: Snake Charmer, Skyshear Pegasus, Elite Ranger, Anaru Good 1st turn drops: Quillquip, Trickster Fairy, Corgi Ranger Meh 1st turn drops: Nectar Fairy, Forest Lerper Bad 1st turn drops: Spikewood Abomination How it plays out: EVERYTHING IS SO TANKY! compared to Archers, Magic Amp and Fae. You can manfight pretty much most other BGs with exception of like UD, because theirs are scarier than yours. Just remember to maximise the benefits of Spikewood Abom, whose unleash ability can give you up to 3 attacks in a single turn. Gotta playtest it a bit more to decide if it's worth rolling out into ranked.
He doesn't have any synergy with vine whip he gets from seed if he takes frighful blows and fury scales too slowly to be a considerable choice. Rangers get so many summons from snake charmer alone to consider unleash over fury.
Strategic retreat is broken. Like 80% sure on that. They keep saying they foxed it but they haven't Why petrichor? Why brambles over carniverous? Balancing act makes me say wut but I can see it working.
1. Strategic Retreat now causes a target friendly champion to be healed for 15 and move 4 spaces away from the enemy. 2. It's an AoE 3 heal for 12, which is useful as a lot of Rangers are melee and don't rely on ranged spells. It keeps them in action for a long time. 3. Synergises with Vine Whip on Spikewood Abomation / Seed of Potential. 4. Again, Rangers are quite melee-heavy and need to close the distance ASAP. Balancing Act grants extra SPD and Evasive 3, which lets your chosen Ranger live longer and reach the enemy faster.
He has forest front though. Frightful blows plus domain makes him much cheaper and better at the 1v1 fights (whereas unleash is obviously much better with allies).
Domain costs more than Unleash - Entagling is better for allies as it makes it more difficult to disengage from Rangers.
Yeah sure, so I guess do you want a solo guy or a team guy? I haven't played the champ just trying to play devils advocate here
I suppose I'd run him with fury and frightful in Treefolks if I were to use him there. Just seeing more potential in Unleash + Entangling in Rangers.
This is what my updated ranger BG looks like: I added 2 Splinehawks as alt damage and removed balancing act and brambles as they seemed to underperform. Using Burning Oak Seed mostly on melees, while the frostcall quiver oftentimes gets thrown onto quillquips for +3 damage from Chill 1, frost attack and unlocking all of their abilities from provision: utility.
Why don't you run centaur commander or de'lim? Is kaya really worth it? Do quilquips do good? How often do you play fanfaire and grimlics bane? Isn't escape magic > strategic retreat?
1. I don't have the commanders (non-forgable) so I cannot use them. If I had them, it'd most likely be a choice of x1 in place of nectar fairy or in place of 1 spikewood. Same about D'e'lim plus I find him to be a better choice for De'lim BGs. 2. Kaya is a very powerful ranger as it offers 2 ranged attacks (1 of which slows), has a powerful melee strike (-5 damage, -2 DEF if they're slowed or illuminated) and allows your rangers to deal even more damage thanks to battle leader, which can also act as mini-sustain. It also has a huge health pool and decent speed, meaning that it can sow quite a lot of chaos. 3. Quillquips are the best ranged rangers if you're looking for utility as they come with strike and provision utility for 64 nora. Their damage is low (9/10 without/with banner), but they can ignore DEF, have good range (3-5) and if you equip them, they gain detection 3, shatter summons and mountaineer. 81/84 nora (including frostcall quiver) for the amount of utility they grant is really great. 4. Grimlic's Bane is used very often by me as either a finishing tool or to setup a battle leader proc for my Corgis. Having a spot 15 damage anywhere on the field also means you get to perform more daring attacks or charge-ins than usual as you have more damage than usual. Fan Faire I use every second game, usually once I have 3-4 champs out. My fan faire targets are fairy trickster, nectar fairy and snake charmer but using it on Anaru or Spikewood as fascinate targets can also yield interesting results. 5. Escape Magic costs 45 nora, triggers on lethal strike only and removes the ranger from the fight. Strategic Retreat is 30 nora, heals for 15, moves 4 spaces back and keeps the ranger in the fight. With a little bit of smart thinking you can also use the spell offensively to - for example - move a champion towards the enemy font and contest it with a healed ranger. There are infinite uses of the spell compared to Escape Magic.
Damn, I didn't even know that Hinder Movement got buffed. Kaya is definitely great then. I'ma add it to my bg too. Yeah I was also thinking of running them but something stopped me. The provision aspect of it I guess, I really like my garu hunter, but now that I think of it I do need some more alt dmg. Although I don't like that I can't have both provision and poison 1. I wouldn't mind paying for that the additional nora. I see. I just find that the potential Firk up of your opponent killing your champion is too good to give up.
