RadicalX

I guess more tools to adjust Rogans position would've been very helpful. Additional Nether Warps, Tunnel + Burrow Ritual, Portal Nexus or creative stuff like Amok + Deep One pull allow you to set up a meaningful strategy, but with the existing restrictions it comes down to one Nether Warp to meaningfully adjust Rogans cleartime. Pathing gets incredibly important as a result.

If anyone has latency issues, you can use shift + rightclick to set waypoints in advance.

You can combine Abyssal with Promise of Life and sacrifice him right away. You get a new XL unit while triggering the passive, which provides a very durable frontline without binding any power. With Shrine of Memory or another form of void return provided by an ally you can spam spells from this point and support them accordingly. Thunderstorm, Revenge and Swarm are pretty solid options, any Enlightenment combination is good too obviously. Considering Abyssal splits up into a lot of units over time I like to pair them with Timeshifter Spirit for the strong AoE heal, but that's more niche. Spore Launcher was related to a potential future card change, it does not enable its own archetype right now.

I agree, that Frost is at an advantage in the matchup against pure Shadow right now. A few considerations for the matchup: - Nightguard is still very good against War Eagle. She will neutralize a lot of the pressure a Frost player can throw at you. Assuming you can make good use of Netherwarp to get your hands on some of the unbound eagles, it might open up a direct win condition too. - The main reason I mentioned Nox Carrier is the value that comes from stacking unbound unit counts over time against the low dps of Frost on T3. This is a different playstyle from building a lead through kicking powerwells, which can be tough due to Amii Ritual. In order to execute the strategy you prioritize getting a lot of rippers and keep them alive for some time so you can launch a major attack once void returned to your power pool. There will be a few buffs to some of the cards pure Shadow wants to use on T3 next patch, Nox Carrier is one of them. - A possible move to cheese Frost or hyperscaling players in general is to handshake a lot of bonus wells in the early game (ideally you want 8 or more). This opens up an economy which not only allows a fast T3, but also makes T4 an actually realistic move. Frost does not really get map control, so by contesting the center in the early game you can secure the orb spots for such a strategy. Pure Shadow has quite a few flex slots, so there is space to prepare for this without really sacrificing too much early game strength.

The general issue with Nightguard was how she trivialized a variety of expert maps. Convoi and behind enemy lines are some of the best examples here as these maps could be solved almost entirely by spamming Nightguards. Building up an unbound L-unit army while simultaniously turning off any dangerous patrols took the entire challenge an expert cPvE map is supposed to be. After the nerf you can still utilize Nightguard by taking Rageflames and Devastators, but the maps still offer complexity through Stonekin Warriors/Twilight Horrors respectively. In regards to Titans you can just pull the units away from the MotK to make the Deep One swap easier (will also provide a much better angle to kill the Swamp Drake). I think you got a very good point in regards to Parasite Swarm upgrade progression. This should be adjusted as the U3 bonus was never directed towards PvE usability.

I looked into your replay and the Urzach ability damage seemed to be in line with its intended value here. My guess would be that what you described is more related to unity (b). The affinity applies its damage reduction twice doubling effectiveness. Combined with the QoL buffs unity received over time (i.e. increased target cap), it might have caused the differences compared to your old experiences.

A few extra comments to the matchup patterns after the balancing changes: - Parasite (the spell) got a large buff and can be used to take down Skyfire Drakes. Also helps with killing ravaged targets, i.e. when you combine it with Spirit Hunter poison. - Creeping Paralysis is really strong to catch/distract Firedancers and keep your power wells healthy in critical moments - Ghostspears got a buff, which increased their value a little bit further. They win direct trades into any Fire unit, just don't use too many of them at once because of Wildfire. Apart from Shrine of Memory receiving a rework, all of the previous tips are still valid.

None of the old rPvE boss dps values got changed in Skylords Reborn. If you have a replay with Urzach ability doing way less damage than intended, I could take a look whether there is a potential bug.