Themes: What are they? Where are they going? IDGAF

The last part of the title may have been a childish shot at the mid who changed the title of my last thread.

The point of this thread is to be a place where we can collect the thoughts on the various SL themes such that when Sok decides to look at a theme he's got something to draw on.


This is being done from my phone, so don't expect amazing formatting.


Our themes:

Dragons/Skywing

Draksar

Skeezick

Beast

Acid/Fire/Amp

Sand

Myx/Arthropod

Mutant



So I think that covers the themes in SL. Are there themes you feel I missed? What state are the themes in? What do you think they need? Etc.

 

Right off the bat, it'd be nice if the Myx/Insex had a homegrown source of Detection.
My initial thought is a Reptilian Moth with extra big antennae.

 

Dragon : crutches on Maulers/Rumblers/Relay/Surge a bit much for it's own good. I'm kind of amazed they made it this far without being wrecked. Range still severely lacking (and this should be exposed if the op stuff gets nerfed) but what are you gonna do, release some 4-6 dragon spitter thingie?

Draks : I feel it's in a right place even if it's super average. Kinda hard to make the whole thing works when there's like 2 Draksars worth playing outside of a dedicated deck (and one of those is about to be nerfed). The last Dlord buff was a nice touch but it's still a B tier deck.

Skeez : Solid. No complains here. It does what it's supposed to do. I think some skeez are a tad too efficient for their cost. Alliance rework was a resounding success.

Beast : oh the 91 nora herder.dek? Always was such a binary deck : either crazy op or utter trash. With the proposed Boost/Commander/Defender changes on the horizon there's a lot of room to grow and I feel we should take a good look on what to do with the theme once Sok gets clearer on what he wants to do.

Amp : was that ever a thing? I don't really know about that one, never bothered trying it and always seemed like a failed experiment. Doesn't help that the amp stuff is unplayable. Wouldn't feel bad one bit if all mentions of amp fire/acid were scrapped and replaced with something else.

Sand : Dunewalker cna't teleport everything everywhere. This starts and ends with Grant Tunnel. Otherwise you get random meta-ish deck with Mantles and a bunch of average Sand Spray champs.

Mynsex : Bit early to tell as things haven't settled yet. General impression seems to be "OMG TOO MUCH SUMMONS WHAT DO" treespam 2.0. None of the new toys save Coordinator are super impressive. Range is still super awkward : Kwing Alphas are impossible to get and Dartwings are ok at best. Improve Speed seems strong but might also be one of the only thing keeping the whole thing together. That and ALL THOSE F'ING DRONES.

Mutant : that's not a theme, that's an after thought. Vinecreeper is trash. Netmaster and Persecutor have no home. Marauder spends his charges on Bombs. Thug is a mess. I had to look up how many charges Mutate gave because nobody uses it for that. As cute as it tried to be, I say we forget about it and move on with our lives.

 

Could this change to Themes be a step away from the SL playstyte we are all tired with? Can a faction move away from it with its themes or is it a change that needs to be made alone?

 

I would like Sand to have some new abilities to play with other than increase damage, hide on sand or spray sand.

And Acid Amp would need some tweaks here and there and would be totally appealing to be played.

Suggestions
- Rework Heart of Gnash to be playable on any champ other than Vex (The Firk mask gives %20 and costs 20N). Maybe 10%/10%F 20N on champ and 20%/20% on hero. (Not like Vex loves too much his Gnash).

- Flame and Acid Dragoleeches looks weak somehow. I would like Noraleech to lose it's 75% own nora gen clause.

- Remove Storm Acolyte from Skywing Imperator, SL has poor lightning sources :S. Also reduce Desert Walker to 4N and possibly move it to upgrades (only Hidden: Sand and Sand Striker takes big benefits from it, miles away from the benefits of High Tide or Ice Front).

- What if Skeezick Alchemist loses his basic attack (not like his animation is cool or anything) and becomes full suppo with some mobility and more actives?

 

What IS that?

 

can of worms

 

Never have I disagreed with something more than I do with your claims that Skeez doesn't have a cool animation.

 

His basic attack animation is him saying "degh" with his tongue...

 

I thought it was a firk in a cradle

 

I might be going off on a tangent in a bit, but I feel it's relevant.

First, I agree with Jib about our main themes. Myx, skeez and dragons are doing good and while I would love to see some changes to them, we don't necessarily have to focus on them too much.

Draksars are super average and high priest is too expensive to be such a crucial theme rune. Wyrmpriest needs to become a real substitute for him for it to work, instead of an expensive sermon on a stick. Many draksars could use some changes.

Rumblers + maulers needs to be toned down while other stuff needs to get a real synergy. Dragonflight feels like an afterthought instead of being a real synergetic abillity. Transmission relay is mostly strong because we have maulers and rumblers, so I wouldn't change that. I would rather have some real interaction between runes rather than having a passive boost stat/surge. Something like, "target dragon gains draconic force" or tough or whatever. Maybe fix touch of vindrax to actually grant aggressive.

Myx is beginning to be tree 2.0 with super efficient summons everywhere. I don't like that.


About the other "themes", I would rather have them become sub-themes, or modules which could be placed in a theme deck (or a meta deck) for a different effect.

Fx. Sand isn't a real theme anymore now that so many different units have domain:sand, and don't really synergize so well with each other otherwise. However, sand could be incorporated into a myx deck with sand scorpions benefitting getting easy c&c and having sandstriker, while some myx have a light sand synergy (sand veil + domain sand). Or maybe it could be incorporated in a draksar deck with draksar lord being a strong tank and dunewalker teleporting stuff around with mantle for damage boost, everything getting violent off of each other, and commander/sermon working.

The more I think about it, the more I would like sand to be a sub-theme which could be added to certain decks to some benefit.

Same thing with mutants/mutation. It is definitely not a theme, and can barely stand on it's own, but with slight changes I feel like it could be a module incorporated into other themes.

Acid/fire is similar story.

Thoughts?

 

Isn't that Myx's "Thing" though? Spamming Summons? I mean, if you took that way, what else would they have that would make people want to play them? Really cool looking sprites? lol

 

"Spamming efficient summons" will never be balanced, and takes away from focus on individual units in myx theme. It is also too easily counterable by sever summons, and is gimped by swarm units, which creates very uneven matches between decks. Sever summon gimps you too much because of range of that abillity, while decks without swarm/sever summons are stuck in a limbo of neverending assault of drones.

The worst thing is that you barely need any units on the map apart from matriarch/coordinator and drone spam. It feels bad to beat your opponents with free meat supplemented by 2-3 units. It creates unfair scenario where if the opponent doesn't rush you right off the bat he will get easily overwhelmed by free meat in just a couple rounds.

I have won games where I have made terrible mistakes and have been careless with positioning of my units, just because of this. I don't want bad play to be able to beat better play just because of the deck.

We could have gotten units that interact with drones in other ways, and in some ways we did (vigor:acid), but since the interaction is so small it doesn't make a meaningful difference. Broodlord has consume which is nice (as it also removes the drone), and similar mechanics should be encouraged.

More than 2x lay pupae will create unbalanced gameplay unless we gimp drones.

 

If only there was a way to grant Myx Drones "Death nova"..

 

I've just started playing Myx again, and I'm finding the summons a bit too strong. Here I am, paying basically nothing for 30hp units that consist of 80%-90% of my army... If anything, I like the summons but I want to see Brood Bond change a bit.

My first thought came up as I was reading the myx pupae lore thingy. It says "If Pupae are in a hostile environment they will instinctively reduce hatching times drastically...at much cost to their lifespan." So maybe... something along the lines of Short Lived?

Another thought was reducing the base time for Pupae to hatch (ie 4 turns? 3?). Not only that, but the drones that are hatched would have reduced stats (similar to K'thun's Young Sapplings) but having more Brood Bond champs would have their stats come back up to what they usually are (or a bit lower). That way, we're stressing the importance of having real units and supplementary summons.

I do recognize myx being very vulnerable to Sever Summons (and swarm to the extent, although I find drones are pretty resistant and aren't as vulnerable to this as say... Spiders or Trees) but I currently don't have any ideas of getting over this :/ I feel like summons are such a touchy issue, because it's "Wreck or get very easily destroyed" depending on the deck... which is no fun, since strategy and skill are just as important.

I love Myx (probably the one reason why I play SL... xD) but I'd like to see them be more balanced ^^'' But anyways, just my 2 cents~

 

I kinda love the idea of giving more Myx Consume.
It'd give them Synergy with drones, while leaving fewer drones on the field.

In particular, I want to see the Matriarch eat her own babies.

 

That simply adds power to the Myx in the form of flexibility, without taking anything away. If there are too many Drones out and the Myx player knows that's why he's winning, he will leave them out on the field. Consume is just for when a Drone or a deployed Myx are about to die and it takes nothing away from the Drone spam power.

 

What about giving them Rite abilities? well still noone would sacrifice a fullHP drone.

 

Honest opinion:

Drone spam was only balanced because it was limited to matriarch + occasional pupae.