Ehh ferren are just bad because of low base damage and pretty weak defensive abilities, portal dancer and snow shroud are good and all but when all your champ have 30-40 base hp and 0 defense it's hard to keep them alive. I thought about doing a whole write up on all the ferren and what could be changed to make them better, but I don't have the time.
The thing is, their defensive abilities aren't as amazing as they used to be. Not only because Precision now counters Evasive/Reflexes, but also due to the great amount of Defense-ignoring damage(AoE's, DoT's) which makes such abilities less powerful(in general) as they used to be. The obvious, more flavorful and easiest solution would be giving them more offensive power, be it through a better Ferren Focus or more damage. As they are now I don't see them beating lots of themes just with thei basic attack power, even with their built in sunder.
Looking at Ferren now, I know I had looked at them when Snowspinner was released but I think I had the same issue then getting into the theme as I do now, they are just missing something... It doesn't make sense to me that status' are applied in such an order. Unless however their toolkit was focused around status ailments, which from what I've seen they are focused on adding utility to the field. I don't see the theme here, mainly because there aren't enough Ferren. Ferren Focus could be left as is and adding 2-3 Ferren may take them in any direction. I think saying add some stealth or add some dmg to them doesn't help their theme, but more so the first-glance decision of "yeah they have the stats/abilities I want lets add them" and that is because Themes are so diverse in Pox that you have themes based off race/class/status/dmg type/on deploy/spell/relic/ etc... Ferren Hideout: Focusing on this. I don't like the idea of it being Ferren exclusive, its a free Warwizard in ST whenever I split with them and its great. However based on Ferren Focus and it adding status ailments to enemy units I think an interaction with Ferren Hideout and allied Ferrens may be where their theme lies. Suppose after being relocated from the Hideout that unit gains: X, I was thinking something similar to Illuminate/Branded. Have a few different abilities they may earn as they are relocated through the hideout. At random or go with how Ferren Focus is now and make it progressive. Example: First Relocated unit: Gains Comander/Boost Second: Gains a type of shroud or support utility Third and rest: ability similar to Brand themed for Ferren abilities may last until unit moves from relocated position. (This made my think of Meerkats on the lookout) but that's what I mean have an idea for the theme, one not relative to Poxnora may help the design process) I hope I'm missing the point of Ferren Focus, and their theme all together. I know they won't get something unnecessary like race:beast, perhaps something to tie their classes together is all they need.
I talked about defense not meaning as much a while ago in another thread, almost every ability ignores defense nowadays. Damage is too low and you need too many ferren out to get everything else going.
I actually feel like DEF has increased in value due to the decrease of alternate attacks and higher CDs on bombs and such. Not by a ton, but some.
We increased the cool down on bombs but introduced many new abilities that ignore defense, counter-productive.
Like what? Also, keep in mind that if Champion X didn't get New Ability A that ignores DEF, he would have gotten Old Ability A that ignores DEF. What matters is the prevalence of such abilities in the meta as well as the rate at which they can be utilized once on the field.
Ferren are fine but some of them could need some help. Especially the Ninja and the Master. http://forums.poxnora.com/index.php?threads/current-state-of-ferren.22372/ Kill Sense and more Portal Watcher is everything the theme needs. Maybe a Ferren equip that helps with re positioning them for power turns.
Surely Kill Sense on Ferren would be broken as Firk. You'd get procs just for double tapping and there would be slow and freeze debuffs just all over the place.
Not really. Frozen is only 1 round and does not affect kill sense and double tapping with ferren is common but not on multible enemys. He is going to have 4 to 6 damage most of the time. Cant see this being more broken than assasination, hunter, cull, deep wounds or other damage amplyfying abilities.
It's the extra speed, you tap a few champs with your ranged ferren and you could get +2/3 speed so easily.
You can also get a lot of speed with Spur. Kill sense is somehow Spur with a precondition, a little more range and some more damage because of the precondition. Do you see complains about Spur in the last time? Or about the Snap Hunter in splits? Regarding tapping with ranged ferrens: You won't "tap a few champs with your ranged ferren" because thats much to dangerous. You cant afford doing so because ferrens are not tanky enough. That worked with the old FF with awestruck but now you need to powerturn hard. I really think the Ferren Assassin can be well balanced with Kill Sense. Yes it can be very good with proper setup but most of the time you will have moderate extra stats and very high ones if you try to powerturn. But thats the same with any other one rounding tools.
I actually agree with it from a flavorful point of view, animals from the weasel family are some of the most ferocious and successful predatory mammals today despite their small size. I think it suits them well, just not from a balance perspective.
I still think Ferren should have Harmless Bauble overload. Any champ with the sunder condition gets a Harmless bauble equipped. Some kind of defile and or a inhibit. When you hit for 6 -8 with no defense, things go bad. Its not like ST has the ability to inhibit healing by another source. The inhibit needs to be part of the ferren focus so it does not get abused outside of a ferren BG. I see this BG as a bunch of strikers harassing the opponent. If the opponent can just cleanse or heal so easily on them then all of that swapping and striking hard and still have AP left over to get out of harms way is all for nothing. Then the Ferren BG is not even harassing or a threat any more. There biggest weakness is they can not hold fonts or control the battle map. That leads to defense ideas. Aid defense or snow cammoflauge would help and or just a base defense adjustment. The weaken spells was a huge help.
How is it flavourful that trained ferrets have a sense to kill? They excel in the domain of what can be considered martial arts, or as Poxnora would put it, nohkhan do. In what world do Ferrets have the sense to kill? Maybe on Timber Wolves, but not on Ferren. I shouldn't even have to explain why it's not flavourful because this should be based on complete and utter logistics.
I'm pretty sure ferren aren't "trained ferrets". They're an athropomorphic sentient race. Calling them "trained ferrets who shouldn't have the sense to kill" is like calling leoss monks "wild cats that shouldn't know how to meditate" or tortuns "slow tortoises that should move at the speed of a snail". This is a fantasy world. Anthropomorphic species don't neccesarily have to resemble their animal conterparts exactly.
Your comparison is absolutely flawed. Leoss Monk has merciful. Please poxbase the ability merciful. Angel of Mercy also has merciful, again, please poxbase that ability and tell me it's not flavourful. Having "Kill Sense" on a group of Ferrets is not flavourful. Yes, this is a fantasy world, but that doesn't necessarily mean there shouldn't be flavour to it. A prime example would be the Naria. The Naria is a plant/vampyre theme. When I see Naria, I think of heterotrophic plants that rely on the enemy in order to siphon from them. It's all flavourful, without flavour, we might as well make a monkey theme that has no agility, or maybe polar bears that live in the forest.
So? You clearly don't even understand ferren lore, considering you thought they were trained animals. These are just another race in the lore. In this lore, they're primarily ninjas, brawlers, and monks. The Leoss don't have any particular focus either, neither do the lonx. Your personal preferance regarding lore isn't going to convince anyone.
