With this transition something of a balance patch also got pushed through. I'm not sure what precisely the changes are so I'm going off of memory as to how they used to be. So there could be some things missing as to what was changed. The buffs: Archnic Base Changes: +2 Dmg Added Aggressive Added Leap Rank 3 Upgrade Changes: Lost Health 1 Lost Dmg 1 Lost Def 1 Added Logistics Speed Added Debilitate Added Impair Vision Beezick Base Changes: Added Grant: Flifht Lost Inexperience Lost Surge:Arthropod Lost Skeezick Alliance Upgrade Changes: Lost Poison Rank 2 Lost Regen Rank 1 Lost Tunnel:Sand Rank 2 Lost Def 1 Added Brood Bond Added Pull Arthropod Added Skeezick Alliance Added Regen Rank 2 The nerfs: SL Doomball Base: Lost Init Skeez Ripper Upgrades: Lost Init Rank 2 Gained Init Rank 1 The Legendary Change: Drakkie High Marshal Base: Lost Bounty Hunter Gained Dictate Gained Magical Beam Gained Violent Upgrades: Lost Violent Gained Cleanse
The Nerf to the doomball and the ripper are fair, although at this point I'm not sure why any of the doomballs still have init. Buffing the High Marshal is somewhat mind boggling, although he is less tanky now, so perhaps that was the intent there? Not sure. Our "Buffs" are garbage and do nothing to help the insex theme in any meaningful way. The buff to the archnic is nice, but SL insex don't need more melee stuff, there is only one insex in SL with a base range that exceeds 2, two if you count the Alpha's alternate form. The beezick gained pull arthro, which is actually quite nice, but it now packs less of a punch and for some reason got brood bond. I look at our buffs, then I look at the buffs for some of the other factions, and I find myself rather depressed.
Buffs were supposed to be balanced by the severity of nerfs. Small nerfs, small buffs. I don't recall the original changelist exactly, but I don't remember Grant: Flight being on there. Looks like they were tweaked a bit, I thought Beezick was more exciting before. I wouldn't underestimate Archnic - Web is only CD 2 and this thing is super cheap.
I thought the beezick change was unuseful. I also thought the change to the marshal was uncalled for. The draksar needed the tanky guy... eh w/e I guess.
Beezick's problem is that three upgrades work in three different deck types (Myx, Skeez, Bugz), so you're probably going to pick one of those and then regen2. Other than that he becomes pure support vs. support with the chance to hit hard via surge. Tunnel sand 2 to base would've been nice. The doomball that I knew wouldn't have been worth playing without init, but I looked at my doomballs again and they've undergone some overalls since I was an active player. He's probably fine. Too much init is always one of the tings that gets complained about so some of that going away (as long as its not just from SL) is probably a good thing overall. Archnic looks aiight.
beezick's problem is that he's bad. 72 nora for something that neither creeps, nor crawls. for something that moves slow as fk, and does next to no damage you could argue it adds mobility to insex, but all the mobile insex have it and all the immobile insex are 2x2 roadblocks. i'm not complaining about pull arthro so much as saying if he had lost no abilities at all with the change, and simply gained all of what he got, he'd probably still not be amazing i may be under-rating him, but when you make a champ this ap reliant it'd be nice if they could have some ap to go with that also, i think it might go without saying, but he'd definitely be stronger if there were better insects to go with him
Beezick is indeed at this point bad, that is due in part to the fact his base abilities are entirely underwhelming and don't make me want to run him in any bg of any sort. This problem is compounded by the fact that his upgrades are going in three different directions and none of those upgrades is anywhere near good enough to get him run in that particular theme. He lost Skeez alliance base for some reason, which is odd. He got brood bond, but aside from that there is absolutely no reason you'd ever even consider running him in a myx bg. Pull arthopod has the propensity to be a solid upgrade if it weren't the only thing that really ties him to insex bgs atm. I'd love to see him get tweaked a bit, give him range 3-5, give him surge back as an upgrade, maybe give him boost insex 2 as an upgrade, take plant hive away from base, give him swarm:hive or deconstruct: hive such that when he'd land a killing blow he'd drop a half health hive where the corpse was. And if that was done, maybe make his attack something like Attack: Magic Bees. With the idea being he shoots them so full of bees the corpse itself becomes something of a hive.
He was honestly never going into a pure skeez bg in the first place, so this is kind of taking a useless base ability and using it to kill an upgrade slot.
I was trying to get Beezick to gain Relic Guardian but I guess it didn't make the cut. He is quite underwhelming, but our nerfs are also very light.
Aggressive triggers both: Debilitate and Poison. I somehow didn't expect that... Krikkiwing Alpha could get Regal Presence instead of Surge: Arthropods (and lose race: Dragon). then refresh Krikkiwing: • Attack: Acid • Creep and Crawl • Flight • Poison Clouds (3) • Scour (1) • Scour (2) • Flame Nova (3) • Poison Eater • Arthropod Frenzy (renamed Spider Frenzy) yeah, Beezick was meant to be stronger
If we could avoid buffing Legendaries especially since they are harder to get specific ones now, that'd be nice. Also Krikkinwing was recently changed when Rover was introduced - would rather get buffs on other dudes.
well, Krikkiwing got only Rover: Blitz so it was like useless buff. it's like Rolling Shrieker got +6 nora, just because it got howl instead of other upgrade. but if you pick out both Krikkinwings, what are those other dudes exactly? I guess if Owls would continue the tradition of revisiting themes, SL athropods could be revisited in general. because as we can see those single buffs do not push theme enough.