Upcoming FW faction bonus and boon Change Pre-Discussion

With the change to the KF and IS font/faction bonuses it has become clear that balancing of the bonuses is a tangible reality. With the notes on future plans to consider a FW bonus overhaul we should get ready for the ensuing thread.

The current rough bonus noted in SOK thread-
The current rough idea on the plate is - % Nora and CDR on death of real champs.
This isn't set in stone but is a pretty good guess at the direction intended.

The current suggestion from this thread:
Full Faction / Split = At the end of your turn conceal 2/1 champion runes on cool down and reveal 2/1 runes. Gain 6/3 nora for each rune concealed this way.

Also note that Boon of The undead will be removed around the time that themes get addressed due to its inherent issues against themes. The trade off would be that portions of it could be worked into theme related abilities.

Thoughts and feelings?

*EDIT in the current suggestion*

 

I am fine with losing boon of the undead and getting rid of poison resistence,fearless and bonus nora.However i would like that undead champions are immune from disease damage from friendly sources.I am sure everone can see the reasoning behind this.

As for the bonus,as long as its meaninful and has an actual impact and some of the flavor of the FW i am fine with whatever.

 

I know that this is just a game and that it does not have to make sense but poison and disease should not affect dead creatures or constructs. I really do not think that changing faction bonuses or certain racial abilities is needed. If they are going to change everything that makes a faction unique such as the faction/racial bonuses they should just get rid of them altogether. That way no one can complain about faction/racial bonuses anyway, they will just complain about everything else.

 

I think I have missed some details, but the last thing I remember was to butcher BotU and spread it across the different races, actually, I think Sokolov said something about a CD racial tied to spirits. Now, my question is, do they have a rough idea on what would get each theme? I do not think each theme should get a new racial, but it would made sense that certain aspects of BotU go into certain races, either because synergy (immunity to disease for zombies), or because flavour.

As for the new faction bonus, I am not entirely convinced about it. In order to get a benefit from nora refunds, we need to keep our units dying, so in essence we are losing board presence to made that hypothetical bonus relevant, or, on the other hand, keep killing the opposite units, which would mean we were winning the game already. So, in either way, is not as relevant as refund on deploy, or just plain nora at the beginning of the turn.

 

in place of boon have racial 'attributes'. like the faction bonus its something you don't pay for.

skeletons: immune to bleed and evisceration
zombies: immune to disease
spirits: immune to poison
lich: fearless

and then add racial attributes (and class traits) throughout the entire game. yes this is powerful and its why the faction bonuses should be completely removed.

 

1. As far as flavor goes...how do you charm the shambling undead? That never made sense...but concessions must be made to gameplay! I'd rather focus on flavor of how the faction plays than "realism"

Edit: just to clarify, I think flat racials across the board like boon and arctic are pretty dull and actually limiting as it means every champ within that race has to pay for that potential regardless of whether we wish to exploit it, so we either exploit it or we resign ourselves to bloat. This is the same problem I have with our faction bonus...

2. I'm very interested in the themes being differentiated over the next year as sok intends...I'd like to discuss this maybe another thread?

3. Whatever the faction bonus is will dictate a part of how we play. I'm going to channel bansheex...fw is the only faction with a backloaded bonus. I get the hoards of shambling dead idea and the utility of the bonus for that...my feel is, of we are going to incorporate this into "neo boon" I'd like to see a much more neutral faction bonus. For example, Witches benefit practically not at all, spirits hardly at all! They want to develop board position not trade off...

4. Buff the bird! Flat returns let's go!

5. No great ideas on alternative bonus. Neutralizing theirs, duplicating SPs, neutralizing their font bonus, gaining portion of Nora of ALL champs that die (still relatively backloaded but way more game plan neutral,neutral...though not completely)

 

The bonus could go in so many different directions that I'll have an easier time outlining what I would rather not be touched, rather than what I would. Honestly, I don't want the faction bonus changed. I like it how it is.

1. Cooldowns. I love global cooldown reduction on champions. Love it. I would like it to stay there in some form, and certainly not in the form of some gross, narrow racial.

2. Tomb of Hate/Unholy Tomb. These probably wont be tampered with, but they might come up. Don't touch em.

3. Immunity to Disease. Festering Wounds and zombie disease auras depend upon this functionality. Neither do I want disease immunity to be relegated to a small section of FW; talk about frustrating segregation.

 

The current idea getting traction is on death % nora refund paired with a cool down reduction.

So for rough example we could get something like this:

FF: When a real champion dies (friendly or enemy) gain %/flat nora and reduce your runes on cool down by %/Flat amount.

As for boon lets assume that it is removed. What themes really need immunity and what spells could simply be changed?

For example we could simply change festering wounds to 'enemy damaged units'.

Other problematic runes/effects would be corpse pile, desecration (enemy only fix), plague, and infectious (which would need to be removed honestly).

Other then that immunity disease could be potentially fine removed.

 

FF: When a real champion dies you gain Nora equal to 5% of its cost and your Cooldowns are reduced by 1.

Split: When a real champion you own dies your Cooldowns are reduced by 1.

 

It probably helps to admit we are not neutral in this and there is a very reasonable fear that if cool down reduction gets removed from the faction bonus it will not be uniformly and well translated into an updated neo-boon or similar. I have a thought ... If we leave it where it is AND add something, would balance really be hurt? The political response is obvious, but our counterargument could be that a more neutral bonus encourages the types of fw play they don't dislike lol

 

Yeah, take all my advice with a couple spoon-fulls of salt. I'm hungering not only for FW to remain powerful, but for a particular and externally unpopular style of FW to remain powerful. Now, I'm not gonna push for something I think will be detrimental to the game, but @jsat is totally right: everyone posting here has biases.

 

As long as the FW faction bonus will have significant benefit for playing FULL-FACTION over splits...

 

I would have happy with a nora+CDR bonus. What really matters, though, is exact numbers and mechanics. Could we get a draft version of what you're thinking, Yobanchi?

 

My thoughts are rough at the moment but sure.

When a real champion is destroyed reduce your runes on cooldown by 10% of that units cost rounded up and gain that amount in nora as well.

While backloaded it does allow for you to benefit from enemy deaths as well.

This would effect non champ runes as well so some adjustments to things like wake/haunt will be needed

 

Neato. I think that's a pretty clean way to fuse the two ideas together. It may make sense to step-function down: looking at the first digit of a champion's cost is really easy.

 

Lol. This is OP as heck man.
FW is not the nora generation faction, even though Boon is OP and those dead eater mechanics are op as well. Not to mention Unholy Tomb.
How about you guys move away from giving nora?

 

FW has few viable Dead Eater mechanics left. Death Harvester will grab a globe or two, and maybe someone runs Soul Collector. Boon's return on globe consumption is mediocre at best, potentially even negative: the benefit is payed for on every champion, and used by only a few. Perhaps none.

 

And yet, those "few viable Dead Eater champs" do make a difference every time they are played. Boons consumption is indeed mediocre, but if you add up all those globes throughout a (long ass boring) match its impactful.
You gave me zero arguments to retort my point.

 

Soul Collector is not a viable include in my book. Creeper no longer has Dead Eater. Ghoul is Ghoul. Harvester maybe gets a couple globes. In the event he gets 2, he has generated a whopping 2 nora over his other build. I no longer see Dead Eater as a substantive, or even a noticeable, part of FW's top- or mid-tier gameplay.

The penalties for Boon mount at the same rate as its benefits, which is the point at which I was driving. Boon is weak nora generation because of how generalized the cost is in exchange for a particular return. Here's some sample math.

Boon is currently undervalued, which is a benefit to the undead. Lets say the nora return costs 1 nora. I'll keep the champion costs and numbers rough to make the math rounder, but it should approximate a game well enough.

If a FW player deploys 6 champs, as does the opponent, and 4 of each of those champions die, there will be 8 total nora globes on the field. Making an aggressive estimate and saying the FW player collects 75% of those globes, and that every champion was a 100 nora champion, the FW player has just yielded a mighty 18 nora over the course of the game, in exchange for 6 nora total on their champions. 12 nora is an alright amount, but that is not generation.

If a FW player deploys, instead, 6 champions costing 66 nora each and 4 champions costing 100 nora, with the opponent doing the same, they are paying 10 nora for the boon-nora bonus. If all but one of the cheap and expensive champions on either side die, there are 16 globes on the field. Again with the FW player collecting 75% of the globes from both the smaller and larger champions, the FW player has just payed 10 nora for a return of ~(10*2*.75+6*3*.75) or 28.5 nora. Over the course of an entire, lengthy game, boon has just generated a mighty 18 nora.

The number and payoff ratio becomes worse if the FW is deploying a larger portion of the champions, if they deploy fewer high-cost champions, and if they fail to collect three quarters of the globes. Unless the nora benefit from boon is considered absolutely free, its return could very well be negative over the course of a game; that's assuming the player is getting value from the other components of Boon on their champions.

So no, I do not think FW has solid nora generation from death. Tomb is a powerful rune - one of the best in FW, perhaps in the game - but it is all FW has for gen right now, or any compensation for a scaling battle beyond a conditional pittance.

 

That was very well written, bud @kalasle , I will give you that. With that said, Dead Eater is still an incredible ability, and all top FW players run it, so I think you are undervalueing it.
Also, maybe Boon is overcosted as an ability, I dont know, but it doesnt take away the fact that those "whooping 12 nora" is, well, nora gen, and every 1 nora in this game counts. In that regard, I dont think your example is very accurate because in the games I play vs FW players Im usually left without champs. But thats besides the point.
Lastly, good think we agree Tomb is OP.
However, having no reliable nora gen isnt something exclusive to FW, and you guys have it way better than, say, ST.
Either way, my point stands that FW bonus should not be tied to nora gen in any way.