Hey guys just want to hear your opionion on some "tools" our faction is missing. -counter spell (and moga conduit doesn't count cos he's shoebox at that price). -Ap gen: we are the only faction without Invigorate and honestly I don't know why (I don't count Cast Spell Alacrity cos has a slow,really really slow animation that let you waste a lot of time) -anti summon: while in the last expac the other factions got Shattered Dreams we got Disbelief really not worth it(10 dmg to all summon on deploy and that's it,allowing healing for them and nothing for you) toughts?ideas? other tools we don't have??
I thought we were fine with AP gen, when Warcry was still useable. Now I'm not sure (as a side note, I'm pretty frustrated that Warcry has been denied to anyone who plays non-racial bg's....largely because the ability was thrown around too casually to a bazillion IS champs). Maybe let it settle for a bit and see how we are without it (although I tend to agree we are hurting for single champ AP and generally don't have any support champs). To DMRs point, one solution would be to create synergy between spells and champs by reducing spell/relic/equip costs based on champion deploys. For example, we could remove the faction bonus's on death component and replace it with something like a call to arms for non-champions. It solves the programming issue they are facing with the faction bonus, it moves us away from an on-death focus, which I always thought was more FW anyway, and it encourages more support usage.
This is pretty true...the regular kit is: alacrity whispers cleansing emerald diamond mace slaver whip and or Harpoon avalanche(or lightning storm) thunderhead totem the thematic things we have are just not worth it to run if compared to the regular kit,obviously with some few exceptions like mammoth club or peaks tactics or moga magnet (wait no it doesn't work). Some spells are just useless...for the empire for the example could be convertend in something range related to voil, or I don't know(I am at work in a the phone). I kinda like also @Raikan idea, I disliked the faction bonus since the change happened, call to arms maybe will be too much, but giving a meaning to that "SP proliferation" more than a plain refound will be great
I should clarify something: I think theme spells/equips/relics is a bad decision for this game (and for pretty much any game I've been involved in designing). There are a lot of reasons for this, but it basically comes down to standard programming effort and design development for limited/minimal impact. The new relic (the resistance) is a good example of this. Someone had to think up that relic; someone had to program it; and it is only useful to a hyaenids/djinn group. To the rest of the world, it's useless. It short, little to no bag for the same buck. More generally, this is just an example of my problem with themes in general. We're giving people a choice AMONG battlegroups, but not a choice WITHIN battlegroups. You pick hyaenids (or any theme) and the choices are largely made for you. You pick slags, same thing. Instead of building themes, we should build smaller playstyle modules (2-3 runes) that can be mixed and matched. That increases choices within a bg and deck diversity for opponents, and accomplishes those goal with less design and programming effort. Frankly, people that play a theme are (largely) choosing to play a game with one hand tied behind their back in order to have all their units have similar looking sprites. I get that aesthetics are important (as my gf tells me all the time) but if winning isn't your top priority and you want to play with a handicap, you're not going to do as well as decks designed to win. Folks should accept that fact and live with the consequences of their choices. Let's not diminish the options available to meta playstyle bgs in the name of "theme" building (I'm looking at Warcry, which was so "OP" that it needed to be nerfed. It was then too OP that it then needed to be restricted to race-unified bgs, where it was apparently just fine. So it's "okay" to have the ability as a theme-ability (that's not OP) but it's too strong to have the exact same ablity in a mixed meta bg (which a lot of people just dislike and crap on...)). Ultimately, I think a lot of this design effort is wasted; it doesn't improve the game overall, just creates aesthetic differences while hurting the best part of the game: mixed meta. Apologies for the rant.
Agree with this for sure. Pretty much all of my SP bg's are built with the exact same spell/equip set in mind, with maybe a couple variations depending on the meta. They haven't released an SP relic/equip I've even considered running in a long time (and only a few spells), and this is largely due to the nature of the faction bonus. Some of them (Moga Magnet, Looting Bag) I have never even seen in-game.
What we need imo: - Atk: Magic ranged champ that is not racial-oriented. Spoiler: argument Something that fills the role of an Angel pre-dogz days. Something that doesn't rely on anything, doesn't get sandbagged by racial abilities/weird synergistic abilities, offers Atk: Magic at range. Nothing too fancy. As of now, my options for Atk: Magic in FF is: Warwizard [with 5SPD and Cast:Ala, he's more support than straight up pew pew], Primal [melee], Spiritspeaker [semi melee] , Shallaxy [semi melee], Angel [expensive like ef]. - Backlash / Improve Cyclops Shaman to be splashable as an anti-nora gen kit. Spoiler: argument Speckled Fesh fills that role for me, but he doesn't take care of the source, he just benefits from it. We kinda need something to combat nora gen, and Cyclops Shaman is a poor answer for that. Imo -> Remove Chain Lightning from base (-7 Nora), give +1DEF on base (~+2N?)... Reduce RNG to 3-5. rework Upgrade1: Logistics: Heal Champion (+4N), Paralytic Feedback (+8N), Heal Champion 3 (+9N), rework Upgrade2: Relieve (+2N), Entangle (+6N), Shroud (+8N) He'll be a bit cheaper due to RNG reduction, while changes in his upgrades wouldn't change his cost much due to Chain Lightning removed from base. Base is reduced by ~5 nora, upgrades will go up in cost w/ Entangle and Heal Champion 3 at ~4 Nora more expensive. - Counterspell. Spoiler: argument Should be different than most since every faction has their own unique style. As of now, I'm using Designate Scapegoat in FF, but its subpar. Doesn't take care of AoEs. Example: "The next opposing spell casted fails. Target champion you control gains Wandering, Awestruck, and Distracted for 4 turns." (cost: 45 Nora) - Anti-Relic. Spoiler: argument Seriously, this is very frustrating especially against FW's Grim Well early game when we only revealed non-ranged champs. SL has Tornado, UD has Demolish, FS has Erode, FW has Haunt, KF has Overgrowth. Its been years, and have no one really considered asking for an anti-relic Spell/Champ/whatever. I'm sick of having to rely on splits for anti-relic solutions. Yes, FF Cyclops have Relocate:Relic as an anti-relic, but that's a ghetto solution. Here's an easy example on top of my head: CRUMBLE (At the beginning of every turn, relics in play loses 7HP for 4 turns. You gain 5 nora for every relic destroyed this way.) - costs 45 nora. Done. Can be combo'ed with Nublin's pies to gain nora if you can't get every pies (before opponent eats your pies). CONS -> Doesn't destroy the relic instantly (that's new, right?), and gives you nora.
@TheBulwark actually SP is the only faction without invigorate...just saying and without a decent summon counter (severe summon or shattered dreams for example)
Doesnt the new hyaenid have a summon killing ability? Also like I said I dont think every faction should have everything thats my point. On the topic of invigorate, maybe 7/8 factions have it, but 7/8 factions do not have alacrity or cast alcrity just as an example.
Disbelief does just 10 dmg on deploy,that's it,it's not a real summon counter. Yeah other faction don't have Alacrity but do have Mobi or the Ud spell or Horn of order...and yes we do have cast:Alacrity on a 5spd champ who take exactly 30seconds of your turn to make it trough the animation (and it's a real big issue never been addressed). I am for diversity of factions and faction flavour but not when an ability is so spread around all the factions but Sp.
Couple thoughts: Re @RedScarlet : I don't think that SP should have an anti-relic spell based ability. Personally, I think SP's focus should be champions, and our anti-relic ability should be champ based. For example, we could have a champion based anti relic ability that eats relic (eat trap programming could be recycled). That doesn't address global relics, which honestly I don't think should exist, since it removes positioning decisions from the game. Re: @RedScarlet totally agree re magic damage. Re the invigorate point: Honestly, Invig is a very SP ability, one champ giving AP to another. But it's very common and I'd like AP gen to be different between factions. Here's a few ideas (with no thought towards balance): SP could be focused on AP control rather than AP gen, limiting AP gen or preventing AP gain on champs; SP could focus on champ deployment (ie every champ within x spaces of this champ gains x ap when a champ is deployed) or (this champ gains 1 ap at the beginning of each turn for each friendly champ within x spaces). On a separate note, I've thought that an interesting idea would be to make alacrity apply to all champs in the AOE. That allows it to be used as both AP gen but as AP offense with rebuke. Finally, we might want to make anti anti AP ge champ in SP where it causes damage to nearby champs based on their default ap gain per turn. Sort of like a complement to rebuke.
@Raikan preventing Ap existed before and was ugly (for the opponent if you remeber the AP lock bg and was really really umbalanced) but I like the idea (similar to @Sokolov first idea on new KF faction bonus) of giving ap to champs on deploy , similar to Spontaneous Congragation (who doubt anyone ever runned) and to the Ally:X ability (gaining 1 ap on deploy). Still Ap on demand is a nice ability: I am not asking for Invigorate to SP, but maybe for a Drive rank 2? (target champion lose 4 hp and gain 2 AP) or at least make the cast:Alacrity animation fast as the spell (yeah 5 turn of cd is also a huge drawback,basically you can cast it once while you can invigorate every other turn) @RedScarlet anti relic spell would be nice (not a global effect one) but maybe a Reclaim which works on opposite relic will be better (maybe on a golem or as @Raikan suggested an eating relic ability) backlash also was really nice on the Voil Jester (if I remember correctly) and I run the Speckled fesh too as ghetto anti nora (is pretty nice to have all of that nora from a sacrificed UD champion), but maybe a rework of Moga Conduit (including the bug on Conduit itself) as a anti nora champ will be also cool.[/QUOTE]
