Volin

This would deserve a sticky imo

Read it aloud 😉

At least once in the disscussion style it is not. By God, I'm really not always with the devs of one opinion, since my appointment to the "PvE Taskforce" I must even state that I have a different opinion in many topics, especially in the matter of inventory. But the rudely formulated question "What the hell were you thinking?" is simply an impertinence, given the mass of explanations for this decision. I "know" only 2 members of the PVP team, but to accuse them of thoughtlessness, ignorance or stupidity is just ridiculous. But I do like that the solution isn't chosen to be "obvious" or "simple", because most of what comes after "That's simple..." is bullshit. I'm still a bit fascinated where this much emotion comes from, especially in Wintertide and especially from the PvE side. Have you ever looked at the statistics how often this card was played? As if the PvE world would end here... It's a shame that I can't really have a say in the matter, but since it concerns PvP I have to stay out of it due to lack of knowledge. An insight that I would wish some, and here I mean really NO concrete, also. As for the PvE, yes a pity that there is a niche disappeared, but for that so many niches have already opened (yeah - I look at you Emberstrike). If every little buff there was would have been celebrated as loudly as there was drama for such mini-nerfs... again partly translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) - was lazy today

I almost don't need to ask, but you haven't read whats written between OP and yours, or even followed the links, or?

Situational, sometimes. Gives you only 1-3 healing ticks but if nothing else is in range I feel indeed tempted to do so 🙂 Perhaps not optimal, but viable for sure ^^

UPDATED to match 1y-patch from 18.12.21 Hey all, since we have many requests here, but few decks are shown pro-actively, I would like to show some of my RPVE decks (deck kits) over the next few weeks. Each of the decks will be limited by a "theme", they will prolly not all be end-to-end meta approaches - especially since they are relatively simple to get to the point in the BG: Bata = Meta And the rest will run behind. But since I'm a little bored with the Batariel right now - let's take a look at what other fine decks for rpve are out there. This first will touch the meta hard anyways 😄 Theme/Scope: In any row , as much meta as possible and as independently as possible from other players help/heals. Playstyle: Micro > Macro Budget: most expensive Addresses to advanced/expert players Core Deck: - Unity (B) and Bloodhealing give the needed sustain - Heavy spell dependent - the meta makes dmg, distracts enemy via Frenetic, Infect gives dmg and meatshield, the dmg spells clean up most of the units - heavy voidmanipulation via Shrine of War or Cultist Master/Furnace of Flesh enables you to perma use of your spells and abilities - strong T4 options unit wise, with mass Bloodhorns as main carry - T3 is carried by spells and can handle ANY situation - T1/T2 is very flexible and can be designed according to taste T1 - Either or Fire: Nomad (G), Mine, Eruption (possible BG10 addons are Blaster Cannon, Suppression or Sunstriders if needed) Shadow: Forsaken, Soul Splicer (G), Motivate (possible BG10 addon is a good mate supporting your t1 with fire :P) T2 - in any case No matter what your t1 has been, your want a shadow orb as your second. If you started fire you want now to move asap to your double shadow, if you started shadow you want to raise your Boosters NOW 🙂 Isn't shadow T1 better then? Perhaps sometimes but not in general. Every start has its own pros and cons, the pros of a fire start is that it is lean, fast, self healing, team-friendly and due to its spells strong and flexible. I often prefer to run into a BG9 T3 camp with 3 nomads and my fire spells rather then having a few Forsaken and almost no support. Cool-kids-t2-stuff is - Best-in-Slot solution is probably Shadow Phoenix/Embalmers Shrine (almost mandatory for BG10) - Gladiatrix (Gladis shine only really with Green Support, but mass Gladis with good positioning can do the job, more an advanced players solution I assume) - Windhunter is the T2 alternative to Gladiatrix now (Bithday Patch) and outshines Gladiatrix in stats - Firestalkers (nice siege, cheap throw-away t2) - Harvester or Shadow Mages can be pure Shadow options if that suits, Undead Army can scale quite ok'ish with Bloodhealing into T4) - Skyfire Drake is not big carrier, but can do an insane job on some maps - Bandit Minefield is okish, but usually not worth the slot in this meta approach. If you come from Fire T1 to Shadow T2 you already bring your mine and if you start Double Shadow ... you get it 😄 - Undead Army shines with Blood Healing and is almost a must-pick for harder situations. This combo is way more flexible as the Grim Bahir option that I posted in the first run Be aware that map depending is one of the weakest (not weak, only in relation) options aviable but usually not much of a problem. T3 - you want to have now - time to shine! At the T3 stage Void Manipulation and your -spells kick in the door! Though some nice T3 units are aviable the only options for this deck are imo Cultist Master (if you prefer Culstist/FoF over SoW) and Fallen Skyelf (as boss-killer support in T4). T4 Camps can be taken out with Nomads/Forsaken and spells and so can be handled a possible close camp. As far not mentioned interesting T3 cards are: - Incredible Mo (not really needed here but always nice to have one) - Soulshatter (if there is a possibility to take it, do so! You want to have as much dmg-spells as possible) - Amii Monument (only for solo, but there very handy) Last word on t3: No, I did not oversee Sandstorm - not worth a slot 🙂 T4 - finally Carrier is the Bloodhorn (BH) - fast, strong dmg, heals nice via stampeding buildings. Get out 2 and play more as soon it is possible, if you play a second unit get it in the mix after the second BH. Always let 250+ energy left to have spell energy. Before engaging a camp bind your units together with a Unity (b) First spell when engaging is either Frenetic or Cluster (Amok can do the job too), the other second, asap Infect then further according to the remaining priorities. I like to use Bloodhealing on Undead Army skelletons or Grim Bahir crawlers - that a reason for the Grim Bahir for me, though ofc this is not mandatory. Bloodhealing does a nice job too on a BH with Unity running, it does not loose much HP. Earthshaker is a nice skill, but does not perform as stong as we know it in this deck due to the mass BH spam 🙂 If you have room it can prolly clean up last buildings, but I tended to cut it. Just to say it: OFC you can do various T4 units in the mix here, but naming them all would go beyond the scope of this. Though this is more a deck-kit then a deck, I want to give ideas how to play a faction not to give an overview over the faction as a whole. Any more options: - The classic shadow buffs (Life Weaving, Unholy Power & Hero) do a great job on BH! - Never go out without your Disenchant - Warp is always nice to have - Offering (g) can resett your stong spells, if you decide to do so, prolly cut the Cluster (P) (this will get an even nicer option with the comming Grim Bahir changes (Test Server)) - purple Amok gives a nice damage buff and can either replace one Frenetic or be added. Beware to play it not on your units, as they will take friendly-fire then. Also be aware not to play it on your teammates units (same reason) and this is grief play. Bosses you struggle with ... none that comes to my mind. Any other dangerous situations for this deck: Engaging Twilight Dragons with a spell-protected (Twilight Negator) Willzapper nearby (a ugly situation for most decks). Play your Unity as late as possible and strike HARD with the first engage! If more questions come, please feel free to ask or discuss this, I will edit this "guide" Personal, tested(!), samples of my decks are BG9 allrounder for random maps with random groups: BG10, adapted for 1Player-MOTM 2021-06 BG10, 4player, random maps with random groups, assuming SoW by Mate btw one Joker slot Replays deleted as they are broken due to patches. I attach a few replays to see it in action. Be aware, non of this replays is "perfect" or aim to be that. This are raw takeouts to give you an idea how this can be played. I played this deck a lot in the last weeks and can assure that it can work in ANY BG9 situation completly independent from other players heals and can even carry a group. Even the BG10 performance was not as bad as you may think without the perma present green splash 😄 BG10solo_pureBandittest A random BG10 solo in below 23min, easy Bandit map, but still not bad I think. Lost my t4 orb in the second last camp that forces me to retreat. This was my first test in BG10. Here a pure BH T4 w/o Grim Bahir BG10_4player_Pure_Bandit_Test Super nervous played mess - my first group attempt in BG10. In 14min I ran sleeping into a dragon = thx for the rescure group ^^ But hey, this is normal BG10 random group gameplay, nobody is perfect. Really not a carry here, but neither a total fail. Straight average BG10 shit BG9_Bloodhealing Showcase <- recommended!!! A quite strong performance in a 4player BG9 with Command Walker Boss in the End (for me alooooooone) 🙂 BG10_SOLO_MOTM_ PureBandit_rank7 And as last one the current 1player MOTM. This is a first try, I swear, and far from clean, but still a good perfomance I think and at least for now it is a top10 time. Finally: You have feedback, suggestions, nice replays or storys about this deck, please feel free to post below! I am looking forward to your reactions 😄 Is this helpfull? Want more of this?

Hey Zackthundead, this is not as easy answered as your other request. First of all I assume you are asking about rpve/bg again? At least my answer is regarding to this 🙂 On the one hand would recommend "beginners" always to bring 1 green orb to rpve maps, as this one green orb enables you alot of sustain and makes the matches much more "forgiving" then w/o direct mass heals. On the other hand we not see much decks without the perma present green orb, not even from the veterans, which is sad because you can have alot of sustain even without the green splash. But if you want to play this faction pure or for example Bandits, be prepared for a steep learning curve. But lets get a bit more concrete: T1 can be played either Blue or Purple Blue: Frostmage, Homesoil, Barrier - perhaps add even Master Archers Shadow: Forsaken, Motivate, Soul Splicer (G) (Forsaken can be swapped with Nox Troopers, but Forsaken shine better as allrounders) T2 is usally Shadow here: Good t2 units can be Phoenix/Embalmers (perhaps best in slot(BIS)) other units that can do the trick are: Lost Dancers (I like the Red here) Lost Shades (prolly backed by a Viridya) Lost Reavers Stormsingers (any Aff for pve, what you like more) Darkelf Assasins If you started Shadow ofc a Harvester could be a choice too. T3 aims usually at the orb combination (any sequence) 2 shadow/1 frost At the latest the third Orb opens the strong 2 shadow meta: Frenetics, Infect, Booster, Voidmanipulation via Cultist Master/Furnace of Flesh -> this solves ANY t3 situation Still we have a nice super cheap unit here that scales not too bad into t4: Lost Horror is always worth a consideration T4 has a big variety of option which can't be all mentioned in all combinations, lets me give a few ideas: - Overlords are no LS Units but would prolly make the best tank here because of their heal - Lost Warlords are cool looking and quite strong, though they need some protection - Lost Spirit Ship is an OP unit used well, but dies as fast in this deck if not used well - Lost Dragons are inferior to LLS in many aspects, though still shine alot due to their abilities if well used - Spellwise Bloodhealing is you best friend here, try dmg-reducing Buffs like Life Weaving or such in combination (I like Undead Army as little helper here) - the Revenants Combo with Lost Evocation gives strong buffs and can give a nice proper tank too - Winter Witches can give a nice Combo with this deck if there is a lack of sustain still And I still forget to mention anything, I am sure - too many options here. This is a BG9 allrounder for me, but beware some cards are just for the sake of playing them 😄 T4 Playstyle in brief: Horrors give ground presence for the revenant to tank, heavy CC use to avoid getting dmg, heals via Undead Army/Bloodhealing or I buff a Horror to heal, Barrier/Homesoil scale great with Horror/Lost Dragons The approach from @Blashyrkh with the shadow T1/T2 is ofc closer to the meta! Still in T4 I would want to avoid freezes as he uses - here my appoach is prolly the more common. Did yesterday with this even the current solo BG10 motm (a very easy one this month) in what have been a top20 time - so this deck/faction is reliable if you know what you do.

My personal additions to what @SunWu already brought up. If we are speaking of rpve9 I would add eruption to red t1, for green I would usally cut the dryad. T1 stage is usally fast and you want to keep it as lean and simple as possible. For t2 Vileblood are nice on some maps but "useless" for some others, Gladiatrix or Skyfire Drake or Firestalkers are more flexible I think. I don't go with the suggestion to take nature t1 spells at t2 when starting with fire - yeah you can do that, but this is far from the optimal. As you will encounter often/sometimes a close camp to t4 every deck should have options to deal with that, so I don't go with leaving out T3 at all. Twilight Creeper is quite inferior to other solutions here, but scales great into t4 as you can debuff enemys with that. Other options can be Magma Hurler/ Unity and your t3 spells can help too alot, SunWu mentioned all the cool kids stuff, only want to add Creeping Paralysis as option here. Shrine of War is btw quite essential for this deck as you have access to many strong spells you want to use all the time, SunWo brought this up too, I only wanted to emphazise that. And I think it was not mentioned, its the Blue affinities of Abomination and Twilight Pestilence that you want to take, they have great effects - use them alot 🙂 The 2 Green/2 Red deck is, by the way, quite suitable for BG10, for various reasons. If you don't want a Bata/BH here, Abomination would be one of the best options out there. The deck serves the current spell meta, can be played very lean in early T4 with only 1-2 units because strong buffs and a tanky unit are available, it kills fast (even bosses)... only the rather thin CC selection is somewhat limiting here My BG9 allrounder, for random maps with random mates is posted below, perhaps it gives you a bit inspiration. Always have in mind, there is no perfect deck for any situation.

Someones Ashbones that ran today in an early Infester would strongly agree here 🙂

Hehe. Yeah the priority - and the way to kill - the Windhunters was obvious to me. But I was so mind blocked, that I always took my t2, which buffs the Tortugun to get its strong range attack. A Killer to my Skyfires. Your creativity impressed me once again 😉

Yeah really poorly executet 😄 May I ask how long it took you to came up with that? 🙂 This really helped me, delaying the orb/wells like that was the key, at minute 4:00 everthing became clear! My best attempt was a bloddy mess about 13 minutes, I hoped there would be better ways. Most of this should be adoptable to other Stonekin maps. Thank you once again kind master 🙂 Btw I appreciate so much that you not only tried yourself but you gave an example with your replay!

Hey, some may already have seen my question on the discord or elsewhere, the title explains it quite good. I am not looking for theoretical input, I am searching for an expert with practical experience in doing BG10 (in this case solo) against Stonekin enemys with pure Fire, just because 🙂 We are speaking about fighting Camps like this with t2: (if you want to see live, it's the current motm BG10 1pl on the Test Server) The missing spawner does not really challenge me. If there would be one, we could do this with 4 Eruptions. I took it out once, but it was a bloddy, not cleanish, 8min massacre (the t3 fight alone). I can do it with pur Nature or Frost. Shadow has an easy life - but I can't find a propper solution for Fire. Am I missing something? Looking forward for your ideas and ideally for your replays. Cheers Volin

Did you try to use a VPN

Stonekin has a top tier Tank, prolly one of the best in game, ranged, supporter and siege units. Stonekin has in spells and buildings stong heals, CC and heavy support. At least all 4 pure factions have a harder day. The only faction that I would perhaps consider stronger is Twilight, but more because of the mix of green and red cards, less in terms of the faction cards. (before anyone cries, yeah Bandits may be stronger too, but only in very fast and wise hands, this counts not for the average player I'd assume) Long story short: What should the other factions say? And what should they say if you even take some Units out of their toolcase, like the essential Fire Dragon for Pure Red. I am not sure if you are aware the community updates, heres is one linked. You will find there information on stuff beeing worked on, there will be frequent updates comming and you can expect all factions to be looked at very closely. Community Update 4 Sadly for you as a Stonekin-Fan this is prolly on of the last factions getting some love, as Stonekin is like mentioned before one of the (slower but) stronger factions overall. This is only my personal assumption, as I am no staff member. But I can promise you, there are many changes to cards in discussion (huge majority are buffs!) some even in testing stage on the Public Test Server and even new cards are presently worked on. After a little insight, I can say that you can be very excited and get ready for a lot of cool changes - be tuned. But please also have in mind this is a community project done in the free time, please be patient too 🙂

Yes, this assumption is correct

How could I oversee that... yeah listen to the wise man and get Oink. Always.

1) Please have in mind that this is a community project, managed by volunteers in their FREE TIME. 2) Please think alone about the form in which you are looking for help here. Would you give yourself priority 1, I don't think so.

I would put it this way (that's really not meant rudely!): As long as you're asking this question, you better take it. There are, as in every card game, infinite ways to Rome - however, I would first follow the beaten path, as long as your knowledge may not yet be deep enough to build your own compositions. Mark of the Keeper helps you enormously to keep your T1 in the beginning, if you know your cards (and many other things, like BG-spawn-mechanics) very well, you can of course master this situation without MotK. For BG10 I would highly recommend both. For BG9 I - personally! - would never bring a Shaman.

NEVER go w/o if your Orbs give you the option. Liked your first Deck more btw. I would also recommend not to build "the one" deck, but to create variants for different purposes

In your case I'd cut the ashbone. Your t2 is superior and your t3 shadow spells can do any job, if you need a ground presence at t3, your Cultist or Forsaken/Nox will do fine. You really should try out Motivate, its a great spell and even scales a bit into t4. First you use it in t1 to get power into your Nox/Forsaken, in the mid game you can Motivate a Crawler of your Infect and if you are on a good track you can do what wanky supposed and even use it on your LSS in the late match. This is the case for either 9 or 10 but as the step up from 9 to 10 is a huge one, I wouldn't mix things here too much. For BG9 Meta starts are imho: - Forsaken/Nox, Soul Splicer (G) and Motivate - Nomad (G), Mine, Eruption - Windweaver, Surge, and one out of Roots/Hurricane (Hurricane mostly stronger, Roots more versatile). Hint: Practice your BG9 w/o Shaman. For BG10 add: - Bring either a red starting friend or superior knowledge as shadow player. The early boosters are great for speedrunning for example, but still no choice for allrounders and random groups (in my personal view) - For Random maps or if you know you will face flying at t2 add for fire the mentioned Blaster Cannon. If you know you face certain situations you want prolly to bring sunstriders too (sunstriders only as supporter against flying, certain towers and to "block" Lost Souls Dancers - For Nature starts you now want to add at least a Mark of the Keeper and prolly now you want to have the Shaman. Here Root the first choice over Hurricane, though both are ofc great. And your reason is valid Early Boosters are a great thing, even more in your deck. For BG9 - NEVER EVER - but you already got it If you want to play your deck in BG10 swapping one orb is a valid option! Another (I would prefer) is to play GreenT1, bring Shadow t2 and t3 and raise your boosters later. You cant say what is better, this is very situational. However, it is basically very good that you are concerned about the bound energy and do not want to lose your orbs at any price. That is exactly right for the time being. However, keep in mind that changing your orbs can break your deck limitations (only 20 cards that are consistently distributed among the set 4 orbs) - this flexibility quickly makes the 100 energy worth it. Perhaps I may give an example of this: Every good Bata deck actually switches an Orb at some point in T3 or T4, regardless of whether Fire, Nature, or Shadow is started. In BG 10 Fire is simply the meta start par excellence and furthermore you want to have at least one player on each side who is Shadow T2 (Phoenix Embalmers) - this forces 2 or more players to have 2 Orbs of a certain color. Since from Fire/Shadow 2 more Green orbs are needed for the Batariel, many experienced players go and change their T2 orb back to Nature after reaching T3, because they need it for their Enlightenment. Almost all good BG10 players I know do this (at least in unknown random maps with random groups without Discord) and change an orb 2 times in one match, ergo 200 energy loss. It is important to consider well here: What are the costs, what is the benefit. And ofc there are other ways to deal with a BG10 and ofc not everyone pushes a batariel there. Yes there is Amii for one player as option (but I would never plan this for allrounder decks) and ofc you can just push t4 on some maps. Just speaking of the MOST COMMON way I see almost everyday from the top BG players.

Soulsplicer > Meatshield for standard purpose in BG9 For BG10 shadow start is - at least in random groups - not recommended. If you want to do it, Soul Splicer (G) is set and so is Motivate (which I would recommend for BG9 too). Rest of the deck is very common for LSS imho and rock-solid. PS: I personally prefer Forsaken as T1 unit for allrounder BG-decks, as they are a bit more versatile (thinking of Lost Souls Dancers and suicide-actions), but that is a personal attitude. Nox ofc have their strengths too!

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I said the opposite, ofc these Quests are good for everyone who likes them, and sometimes I feel nudged enough to play a campaing map once in a while. Nice that you begin a kinder discussion style and emphazise your personal opinion! But this "Rank XY should be able to beat content XY" is what prolly triggers me, a wrong assumption in really almost every game that comes to my mind. And in BF, neither in the original game nor the beta Rank ever showed what skill the player behind had.

I don't know who the thread opener is ingame and what is your - obvious - personal beef you have with him. And it also has nothing to do with the matter in my opinion. The main point of the thread was and is in my opinion: "Don't force us here too much, because it's no fun" - and I still hold this opinion. Your argument that the TO has probably farmed his high rank in BH is unfortunately off-topic, as it doesn't really get to the heart of the problem. At some point, every casual would come to the point where he has to play maps that he can't manage on his own or that he doesn't feel like playing. And I can think of a dozen other reasons off the top of my head why you might want to bypass a certain campaign map, and each one could/should be respected, even if it might not affect you or you have a different take on it. And "fun" is absolutely the focus here for me, and even though we're all playing the same game, it also shows time and time again that we all have fun doing different things in this game. That you, as a member of the best PvE team that runs around out there by far, then give to the best that one can manage every Expert alone is just impudent elitism - someone has probably completely forgotten where he comes from. Sorry, but really try to take the position of family father with 2-3 playing hours per week and not the time and attitude to read forums, watching replays, youtube... There are many people around that do not even care a bit about that little timer up there or doing things that several players are supposed to do. But lets just speak just for myself here: Personally, I'm probably at the lower end of the top percent of Battleground players currently - but I have NO idea about Expert maps and will not start to get any knowlege there anymore. I am someone who has to do one thing 3-5 times before I can do it - and repeat it regularly so I can remember it. Honestly, the strategies that your team has all there, would be a full-time job for me to remember it all. Plus - and this is even more important - I just don't enjoy it! And this "there are always people in Discord" doesn't help either, you have to find the players you have fun with first. When I did expert maps with more experienced players - like you (thanks again!) - for example for the achievement, it was pure stress for me. Everyone knows what's going on, except me, yeah, that made me feeling great. Pings everywhere, a thousand explanations (usually so brief that only the insider understands), Moon yakking at a stretch, but who is she talking about... or catch a group of people who are even more clueless and you fail without a chance--- yay, campaign rocks...not (for me). By the way, I think the TO is very right when he states that in the vast majority of games, daily quests are less of a "challenge" than an "occupation". I don't think it's a bad thing that there's a "Do map XY" quest, because every once in a while I feel nudged to take a map with me - but please don't make me do it. And by the way, sometimes I did it on expert though my quest was only for advanced. But hey - this was MY choice, and then I have fun. Oh and by the way, the TO has also at NO point said that the quests would be unmanageable for him, he said that they are annoying. Here you can see at the latest that it is probably something personal for you. And as a really last thought just: As much as I laugh at the BH farmers, and by God how I laugh at these Lappen, it is quite arrogant to assume that these players all per se can not play. Unless you take the squad you're traveling with as a benchmark, but then I guess we're all unworthy.... What speaks against constant rerolling (still only one per day if you want, maybe of course with another -5 bfp if that is needed balancing wise)? I see no reasons. In fact quite the opposite, most games I know of that had similar systems had no such restrictions.

Simply not true