I'm not back back, but I am back To reacquaint myself with the new changes since I was last active, I want to make a BG highlighting one of the weakest/worst BG's, themes or whatever for each faction. I will, of course, be testing a couple of my personal favorite themes to see how they've evolved, but this seems like the best way for me to re-enter the discussion on overall game balance. TL;DR - What do you think is the weakest BG/theme for each faction? I won't be actively replying to many of the posts, but I'd like to read through this for a general consensus. I'll start building BG's, and when I do come back back, I'll be ready!
I'll try and cover it for each Faction. FW: Vampyres, they're super bad. a theme that relies upon using damage to heal and bleed synergy but have to choose between bleed and the thing that lets them heal. IS: something from IS Sucks? UD: Lol spiders. SP: Probably slags SL: IDK, more than likely myx are their worst theme. ST: Ima go with Yeti's as my final answer FS: hard to say any of these are bad but either Boghoppers or salaman. KF: Since it's now officially a theme, Centaurs. However theyre still new so thats to be expected. Otherwise, garu.
Deep elves got screwed by a change to cull/hunter. Edit: actually, I'm not sure this did change on the relic.
Were no changes made to upgrade uptions to allow vamp and bleed upgrades to be chosen in pairs rather than in exclusivity? I remember that being the main obstacle for making a competitive BG with vamps. Same problem with UD's bleed module. That's unfortunate :*( Have they still not received a noteworthy buff? This is surprising to hear. I remember cheapstuff Hoppers was all the metarage. Did they receive some major nerfs?
Assuming you aren't counting just like a collection of a factions shittiest champs, FS: Aquatics. Mirefolk and semis have been nerfed into "ignore until next patch brings back water gen" but will be fine after that. Aquatics though, is Bane Shift. I would love to see what an aquatic deck is supposed to look like. KF: Garu look pretty bad. ST: Lonx IS: Barbs. I don't mean paladins, just plain barbs. Except plainswalker who is dope as hell. FW: Pass, nothing in FW is bad SP: Slags SL: Mutants? I wish this theme was expanded they're pretty neat. But Bane Shift. UD: Deep elves or spiders.
I dont really agree with this statement other than the insinuation that they have a bit of an issue with lack of water gen. Its not that bad though, we still have Thing, Ctharia, Enchantress, Slider, Vault, Flood, Monsoon, Tendrils, Bandoleer, Quagmirrian and other options. All they lost water wise was Water Front on Songmaster, i didnt run Tide Masters. Theyre still pretty good.
It seems like it shouldn't have much of an impact but it feels much worse playing them. Songmaster was key because having it on a ranged champ meant your back line could also have water. Now something like mirevixen, an awesome supp champ, struggles heavily. Ctharia is one champ, and she's super expensive. So are swamp things. It sucks that you are basically forced to deploy an 80+ nora champ first on some maps. And if they die, which swamp thing certainly will, you're in a bad spot. Enchantress got switched from water front to trail water. Slider is terrible water gen and sufferes from not being a mirefolk. Quagmirrian is not as good as other options and forcing you to take him for water weakens the deck. All those spells are a nora sink just so your champs can function normally. Before the change that nora could be used on other things, but now it's used just to bring you back in line to how it used to be. Bandoleer is the same thing. It looks like it's going to be changed for the better for mirefolk though, which is nice. RIP poison theme. Vault is probably the coolest racial relic in the game though. Anyway that's just how it feels to me, they aren't unplayable or anything, just less fun and weaker.
I can see why you might feel that way but i just dont agree really. I kinda agree but disagree haha. I felt like there was plenty water to take advantage of with 2 things, ctharia, 2 vaults, 2 enchantress, a slider and some spells.. A bit more trail:water or even water front would be nice, especially where mirevixen is concerned, aquatic can be a real pain.
I miss the first version of slags before of revamp, this slags now are simplified, I remember the ancient slag with devour , colossal, lumberjing , tunnel ozze and gravity well at same time. The metalig slag with calcify , slag overmind with illusion of lies with command slag , The king slag with 4 defense!!! 60 hp!!!!, and absorb , he was a tank nececesary . Now ALL IS TOO FRAGILE, his relic the swamp pool is destroyed for seism, a instant draw win .
the cull changes were stupid and i think they were only done so people could stop complaining about indignation/quarry mark combo and indignation in general. ( i think those were the only offending runes that broke cull at that time;but there might've have been others) cull was one of the few and only dmg amps that took atleast some skill,some luck or some prior setup or even further nora investment ( bounty hunter and the others were brainless and much easier to get going) the changes to cull pretty much killed the deep elf sub theme it still works but its shitty now. i really loved heretic overlord back when he could heal 20-30 a pop after a kill. sure it was powerful but atleast it required enemy champs to die. i mean nefari resurrection was basically a lifedrinker racial and 2x dmg amp every now and then for deep elves. now what is it it lol? they aint doing anywhere near the same dmg as before so the effectiveness of overkill healing's been dramatically reduced. unless you can whittle down the enemy champs to 1 hp you aint healing much. the deep elf theme is just confusing as hell. at this point i can't even tell where its even going.
as i already told you in another thread. all % based damage abilities were changed to flat values, it had nothing to do with nerfing cause of 1 particular interaction it's just a matter of cleaning up the amount of calculator Bane Shift u might have to do in a game.
In my opinion Aquatic should not be a theme. Semi aquatic with some aquatics added makes sense, but a BG that is entirely built around a drawback, that's like saying lumbering is a theme.