Client and Gameplay Update: December 4th, 2022. Book Five: Savage Tundra Discussion Thread.

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Etherielin, Dec 5, 2022.

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  1. Etherielin

    Etherielin The Floof Cultist

    Link to the patch notes: Click me!


    Feel free to discuss the patch here! What are your thoughts and opinions on it?
     
  2. vipoid

    vipoid I need me some PIE!

    Fs in the chat for Crystal Phoenix.

    It has died a final death and will never rise again.
     
  3. Querthose

    Querthose The King of Potatoes

    What did you do to crystal phoenix and the entire frost subtheme?
     
  4. Etherielin

    Etherielin The Floof Cultist

    Could you elaborate, please?
     
  5. vipoid

    vipoid I need me some PIE!

    I let Querthose answer the Frost Theme stuff.

    On Crystal Phonex, it's gone from a cheap(ish) heal spell with a body attached (and Immortality for potential reuse) to a stupidly-expensive brawler...suicide-er... thing.

    Frankly, given that I only use the other phoenixes in novelty decks, I'd have far rather you brought them into line with Crystal Phoenix (Immortal birds that work more like spells than creatures and fill useful niches), rather than making the only good phoenix a pile of **** just to bring it into line with the crap phoenixes. o_O
     
  6. Sirius

    Sirius I need me some PIE!

    The problem with immortal birds that work more like spells is that technically, that design space is already taken. I am specifically referring to Ember Wasp for UD and for SL Hatching Season. Because if you were to redesign the birds the way you suggest, that's what they'd end up as most likely. Sure, those aren't named "phoenix" so they don't tickle the part of the brain that recognizes patterns, but the point is we already had the counterparts to Crystal Phoenix, they've just been hard to balance historically speaking. Ember Wasp and its cousing Borghas used to be pretty bonkers for a while and I believe they were patched many times. As for SL, we used to have a weird decktype that spammed egg relics and exploded Shrines. If you made the other Phoenixes into "cheap spells" you'd have to jump through the same balance hoops.

    Now I don't know why Crystal Phoenix was changed, but I assume it was for the same reason, that it's a gimmicky rune with a lot of abuse potential which also happened to receive support in the form of an entire archetype (Elementals) and spamming global heals over and over while getting a Flying body is too much. If you liked the cheap heal spell aspect of it, there might be champions you can look to for inspiration. Epochal Sage functions a bit similarly. With a bit of coding (I don't know how feasible this is) one could make an ice version of Firemaw's egg and put it on the Phoenix instead of giving it immortality.

    What I would do is simply make its upgrade Path 2 into Divine Favor 3, Resurrect, and perhaps Grand Entrance/keep Death Nova 3. That seems like a decent compromise. People who loved their healing Phoenix can still get it, just not as cheap as before and this keeps it in line with the other Phoenixes.
     
  7. Sirius

    Sirius I need me some PIE!

    @Etherielin since I'm not sure where else to ping you (I'm not about that Discord thing), I would like to suggest a possible buff to Purge, ahead of the SL patch. Specifically, it would be nice if the spell didn't also Dispel friendlies. It's a bit of a pain point to be unable to use it in my SP/SL split because it will remove Magnify Beast. That's what's currently keeping someone like me from using it. Just my 2 cents.
     
  8. Querthose

    Querthose The King of Potatoes

    It looks like a few runes lost amplify frost, and ice shard no longer amplifies frost. That's what I meant about the ice subtheme getting whacked a bit here.
     
  9. Etherielin

    Etherielin The Floof Cultist

    Crystal Phoenix in its old form was just too powerful. We nerfed it multiple times only for it to change absolutely nothing - any ST/X and FF ST deck still ran it, so we decided that there's no way of salvaging its current design from being problematic with ST as a whole. The current iteration may not be the strongest right now, but it's a good start and it'll be tweaked around.

    You are correct. We've taken a look at ST and saw that there's so many champions with Amplify: Frost that you basically just pick the best ones available and the Ice Shard made reaching 50% amp too easy, so we took the opportunity to shift things around a bit. There are still 6 champions with Amplify: Frost so plenty of options to get to that 50%.

    The patch changes have been locked in all the way back in September. The only stuff that may make it in at this point are bug fixes / unbans. Regarding Purge itself: it being a double-edged sword is why it's allowed to be as good as it is. Taking the dispel away from the friendlies would most likely lead to nerfing it as a whole and I don't see the benefit in that.
     
  10. Sirius

    Sirius I need me some PIE!

    Alrighty, I appreciate the answer. I probably don't run any of the bgs that make Purge look as good as it is.
     
  11. nitebane21

    nitebane21 I need me some PIE!

    With ST being my favorite faction I gotta say some of the changes definitely hurt and some flavor was lost (how dare the Queen lose Majestic base!). Not sure how I feel about Ice Shard, I get it to was too easy but kinda makes it tough to run as a viable theme when you need a bunch of creatures to sit around and not die just so your other creatures hit a little harder. I like some of the changes to shoebox stuff, Ice Caster is kinda neat now, Elemental could be a fun subtheme to try and ferrens look like they might be if not OP, close to it.
     
  12. Braxzee

    Braxzee I need me some PIE!

    Funny I think Ice Caster got ruined. Make Ice Block was her jam. It made it super to fun to play and made sense.
     
  13. Braxzee

    Braxzee I need me some PIE!

    SnowCharger Cavalry - can you add break the line and heavy charger?
    Can you fix runes that only have one upgrade path or two choices to the normal 6?
    FIx Ice Stars or change the animation on it so it works please
     
  14. nitebane21

    nitebane21 I need me some PIE!

    Ya, I take back what I said I looked too quickly and saw Make Ice + Ruin = power turn fun. Make Ice Block is way better than propagate, propagate sucks because you don't want her to get hit and plopping blocks around randomly is useless, especially when its up to 5 spaces and ruin is 3 space range. She's ranged but with abilities that suit a melee champ. Fail.
     
  15. Braxzee

    Braxzee I need me some PIE!

    Ice Shard is bugged - It will not give attack frost to any champs jakei or not
    Howling wind is bugged - it will not give vulnerable to frost on any circumstance
     
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