Donaar

Hello again Skylords, Skyladies and other Skybeings; it's time to announce the winners!  
First of all, I’d like to thank everyone for making the Crappy Community Contest #5 happen – no matter in what way: participation, sponsoring prizes, spreading the word or helping me to organize it. 
In total, we reached a total number of 69 participants – thanks to the Skylords Team for sponsoring the code: PROP-HECY-PROP-HECY
 
Here are the fastest prophets of the CCC #5:
1st place         Wanky           06:59
2nd place        Donaar          07:11
3rd place        Trando           07:13
4th place         Arabika          07:14
5th place         Hauclir           07:51
6th place         Lebovin          08:02
7th place         Brand             08:17
8th place         SylarXII           08:25
9th place         Amperium      08:32
10th place       Bini_Inibitor     08:39

I wonder if Mo will embrace his new destiny.

Congratulations to the winners! If you are interested, see below for the top 3 replays and some information about how the fastest times were achieved.
 
Winners of the Random Draws:
Draw 1      Forest Elder (G)     Lbcho
Draw 2      Dreadnought        Ragenarok
Draw 3      Firedancer            LEBOVIN
Draw 4      Harvester             Cheyan
Draw 5      Amii Monument    NightRider
Draw 6      Enlightenment      F10
Draws 7-11, one Fire Booster each: TheAquanix, Ulloo, Doomdragons, TKHHunt, Metagross31

Draws 12-14, one General Booster each: Kociula, Little_Ducky, Maert
I will send you all prizes as soon as possible through in-game mail. 


Total list of achieved times

In case you want to know how you stacked up, here is the total list of submitted times:


Special Feature: A work of art
 



Replays and how it was won

CCC5_06.59_Wanky.pmv CCC5_07.11_Donaar.pmv CCC5_07.13_Trando.pmv
 

 
In conclusion
I was already super-hyped for this contest because of the generous donations that came in even before the contest started (and nobody knew what it was about) - thanks so much for your trust to those generous sponsors: @Simplifying, @Donaar, @wanky, @Doomdragons, @Kemek, the anonymous donor, and of course as always, the Skylords Reborn Team. Also, again I'd like to thank @CrazyCockerell, @Emmaerzeh and @LEBOVIN for helping/making the map - without this support such contests wouldn't be possible.

The target for CCC#5 was to hit the mark more closely what we are used to: a fun challenge, but at the same time something worthwhile for a more hardcore approach. I'm always impressed by the dedication of our speedrunners. I blame EA for all those stuck wagons some of them had to endure.

If you have a crappy idea for future CCC's you may share and discuss that with me, maybe I host your idea, or you can host your own Crappy Contest! Feel free to contact me anytime. If you want to discuss or host a non-crappy contest, contact our Event Managers @Minashigo Hiko and/or @Metagross31. They are super supportive and will help you to organize your event!
 
 

Hello Skylords, Skyladies and other Skybeings; and welcome to CCC #5 – the fifth Crappy Community Contest!
 
 
THE CONTEST HAS ENDED.
To see the winners, CLICK HERE. If you are just here to grab the booster code, there you go:  PROP-HECY-PROP-HECY
 

     
What are “Crappy Community Contests”?
This and future CCC's are meant to be small-scale contests with weird challenges, hopefully luring you away from well-trodden paths. They are small-scale on the organizers side too: there will be no stream, video or event announcing the winners. What's special about these contests is a participation price for the whole community.
     
What, when, where, how?
While the last CCC was about prevailing under harsh conditions, this one will be the exact opposite:
 
Prophecy, Prophecy, PROPHECYYY!

Mo has been chosen by the gods. All the forces of Nyn want him to become the new King
of the Fire Tribes - it falls upon you to fulfill the PROPHECY as fast as you can! 

This challenge is to win the Custom 1-player-map “CCC #5 - PROPHECY!”
on Expert difficulty as fast as you can.
This custom map is a copy of the campaign map Oracle, with two “small” changes:
You will have access to 16 Orbs (4 of each color) right from the start The gods have also granted you 10,000 additional energy As you can see, for this challenge your wildest deck building dreams have come true; you may combine any cards you want! The fastest Skylord will win this challenge, in the unlikely case of a tie, the run that has been submitted earlier gets the higher placement in the ranks. 
The contest has started with the release of this post – submit your entry through Discord (DM to Kapo#0116) or the Skylords Forum (DM to @Kapo) until 28.05.2022 23:59 CET  (= 7 days time total). You can submit multiple times, but only the fastest will count. Please note that the Top 3 Replays will be posted here in the forums. To reduce my workload, you may rename your file to CCC5_Time_<IGN>.pmv (e.g. CCC5_15.53.9_Kapo.pmv).
Battleforge automatically saves a replay file of every match you play, the last game is named autosave.pmv.  You can find your replays here: Documents => Battleforge => replays
 
Community Maps
How to access the map:
 
 
Basic Expert Help
 
 
What's the price pool?
Since this is not just a Crappy Contest, but a Crappy Community Contest, you may help with your participation to earn a price for the whole Community. If we reach more than 20 participants (unique players, not entries), we will unlock a Mini-Booster code for the entire Skylords Community. If more than 30 participants enter, the code will be upgraded to a Booster instead of a Mini-Booster. So tell your fellow Skylords to try this challenge – it may take some time, but it's an occasion to try something completely new, and it raises our chances to hand out a code for everybody. 
Of course, the fastest Skylords will get prices too, sponsored by myself, the Community and the Skylords Reborn Team:
1st place               5 Fire Boosters + Promo Swamp Drake
2nd place              4 Fire Boosters + Promo Rogan Kayle
3rd place              3 Fire Boosters + Promo Lyrish Knight
4th place              2 Fire Boosters + Mo
5th place              1 Fire Booster + Mo
6th place              Wheel of Gifts
7th place              Spitfire
8th place              Core Dredge (B)
9th place              Church of Negation
10th place            Cluster Explosion (P)

Last place              Juice Tank (x4)
For participation, there is a random chance to win one of the following cards:
Random Draws          5x1 Fire Booster, 3x1 General Booster, Forest Elder (G), Dreadnought, Firedancer, Harvester, Amii Monument, Enlightenment
 
Sponsors

If one or more mighty Skylord(s) decides to sponsor this event, please contact me. I would be more than happy to beef up or expand the prize pool, add additional random draws, or any other upgrades to the prize pool. 
The following prices have been sponsored so far:
Skylords Team        Fire Boosters (x20), Community Booster Code
@Kapo                Promo Swamp Drake, Promo Rogan Kayle, Promo Lyrish Knight
@Simplifying        Firedancer, Harvester, Mo (x2), Core Dredge (P), Church of Negation, Cluster Explosion (P), Spitfire
@Donaar             Dreadnought, Juice Tank (x4)
Anonymous            Forest Elder (G), Wheel of Gifts
@wanky              Amii Monument
@Doomdragons    General Booster (x3)
@Kemek              Enlightenment
 
* Simplifying, a player who stopped playing, also donated his complete account. This is the third contest his collection is sponsoring - he expressed how nice the community is, and he wanted to give something back through the CCC.
 
Special thanks and Conclusion
My very special thanks goes out to @CrazyCockerell, @Emmaerzeh and @LEBOVIN who all helped me to get this contest idea going - as it turns out, it isn't really easy to rework a campaign map into a custom map without breaking lots of stuff.
I hope you are having fun with limitless deck possibilities and loads of energy!
Good luck, give those Bandits a dose of Skylords Wrath they have never seen!
Kapo
     
Future Events - get involved!
If you are interested in helping with these (or better) kinds of events for the community, or want to host one yourself, don't be afraid and simply reach out! Contact our beloved Event Managers @Minashigo Hiko and/or @Metagross31 on the forums or discord. They are happy to assist you with upcoming events and with sponsoring your prize pool!
If you especially like this small-scale-format, and you have an idea for it, you may also contact me directly to discuss your idea and host your own Crappy Community Contest.
 

Welcome to this guide on how to construct and pilot the Batariel deck. This guide will go over all the ins and outs of the deck, what to do in certain situations, and general tips and tricks for both beginning and more advanced Batariel players. Let’s open the Gates of Purgatory and jump in.
 
What does Batariel do?
Batariel is a Tier 4  card. It is a rare card and got two affinities.
 Its first ability is Gates of Hell.

ACTIVE: Activate to smash Batariel's giant mace onto the ground, dealing damage to enemies in a 10m radius. The impact will crack open the ground, allowing an enormous cleft to emerge that will erupt fountains of red-hot lava after 5 seconds. Reusable every 30 seconds. Affects ground targets only.

The second ability is Infused/Tainted Purgatory.
PASSIVE: Unit enters stages of rage in battle depending on how much damage it has recently dealt. Either it does more AoE damage around himself, or he shreds the enemy’s armor, depending on the affinity. But if there is no damage dealt for 4 seconds, the flames will abate again.

For this deck we will only be using the fire affinity, and all future references, unless explicitly stated, will refer to the fire affinity Batariel. The fire affinity is used because his passive does more damage, and the shadow affinity reduces the armor of the enemies. Reducing the armor is only relevant if you have other units to do damage as well, in a pure fire deck for example.
How is the Batariel summoned if you do not have four Fire orbs? Enlightenment. Enlightenment is three orbs, two of which nature, and it allows you to use any card for the next 20 seconds without orb restriction. You do still have to pay the cost, 300 power in this case. 

 
The Deck
Let’s start with the Tier 1 options this deck has. When playing a Batariel deck, you have three factions to choose from. Either you start with fire, nature, or shadow. Frost is by all means the worst faction to start with, as a general Batariel deck does not contain a single frost orb.
 
Fire start
With fire, most of the time you want to start with 3 Nomads (Nature affinity). An alternative could be Sunderer in some cases where you try to speedrun certain maps, but Nomads are recommended over Sunderer as they heal themselves and can hit air with their ability and are in general more flexible.
The second card you want is Mine. Mine is an excellent card to take out the enemy units at your t2 camp. In bandits and Twilight maps, often one Mine should be enough. If you are fighting Fire you could use only one Mine, but if you are less experienced or are not as comfortable with a fire start, you can use two mines. When you encounter Lost Souls, you always place one mine and wait with engaging the camp until a second mine is off cooldown. The reason for this is that you may encounter Tier 3 units like Mana Beasts, one mine if often not enough. If there are also units that give shields, then two Mines might not be enough, and you need to place a third one.
The third card you want to bring is Eruption. This card is excellent in taking out pesky (flying) units or to help out your opponents when they are in trouble. Eruption has one other very important use, which is to take our crucial spawn camps. One eruption does 300 damage for 75 power. All small spawning camps have 1200 health, so four eruptions will take out the camp and will set you back 300 power. This tactic is the mostly used in RPvE difficulty 10, but can also be utilized, and encouraged, in RPvE difficulty 9 when you try to clear the Tier 3 camp. In difficulty 9 and below, one to two Eruptions are often enough as you have your Nomads hitting the camp as well.

Blaster Cannon an optional card. This card is not necessary in RPvE difficulty 9 and below, but is almost a must-have in difficulty 10. The reason for this is that there can be flying enemy units on your Tier 2 location, which does not happen in difficulty 9 and below. Blaster cannon fire affinity does insane damage versus flying units and because of that it is preferred over the shadow affinity. The shadow affinity also hits air, but traded extra damage against flying units for extra damage to ground units, but that damage is negligible.
Sunstriders can be a nice addition too as they could replace blaster Cannon, they are inferior, but more versatile.
 
Shadow start
Shadow starts are very straight forward. The first card you want to bring are Forsaken. Forsaken do insane damage and have an awesome ability to do even more ridiculous damage at the cost of dying after the ability wears off.
Nox Trooper is a decent alternative to Forsaken, and is far superior against Crystal Fiend camps, where Forsaken get destroyed. Also, they have a better trapping capability as they shoot each unit in a squad one by one. And base damage output is higher than Forsaken, even when they lose overall to frenzied Forsaken especially when getting rid of the spawner. Dreadcharger also a decent alternative, but very situation.
Motivate is a card shadow can not go without. This card gives a near-dying unit a new purpose by allowing the same units to do more damage for the next 30 seconds.
For Soul Splicer, we want to have the Nature affinity. You want to build this shrine outside the enemies range, as it takes some time to construct it. When constructed, it can collect corpses around itself and a select area. These corpses can be used to heal your Forsaken when they are within the range of the Soul Splicer.

A general tactic when approaching the Tier 2 orb is to construct your Soul Splicer and wait until you have 6-8 Forsaken, depending on how comfortable you are. With the Forsaken you want to lure the enemy towards the Soul Splicer, so it can collect their corpses whenever they die. When fighting the enemy, use motivate on one of your Forsaken to allow the others to do more damage, and to have your first corpses inside the Soul Splicer.
You want to bring an Embalmer’s Shrine if you bring Shadow Phoenix as your Tier 2 unit. You want to construct two Embalmer’s Shrines before doing anything else.
If you play a shadow start in RPVE difficulty 10, then it is recommended to bring 9-11 forsaken, Lost Souls can require more, 3-4 squads gets frenzied and immediately attack the spawner. The remaining units clear the units with the help of a Soul Splicer and Motivate.
 
Nature Start
Nature t1 is relatively effective, in some cases better than fire, especially in solo. Basic composition is Windweavers + Dryad (Blue affinity) + Ensnaring Roots, for difficulty 10 Hurricane and Mark of the Keeper are very strong as well, and may be essential. Root is preferred over Hurricane is because it also helps vs non-S-units up to Tier 4. The edge that nature has over fire is solely not having to build a fire orb until an orb switch, with access to cultists + furnace and breeding grounds (especially useful with Shadow Phoenix against stronger t3-t4 camps)
Windweavers is the go-to damage dealer for Nature Tier 1. They are versatile and can shoot multiple enemies at once, which makes them excellent in clearing early camps. 
Dryad provides the units around her with a damage reduction buff. One Dryad is often enough, but keep in mind that she does not buff herself. Having a damage reduction buff on your units allows you to use less heals. 
Surge of Light is great. It is super good to heal your low health Windweavers, and  it scales super good into the later stages of the game as you can still use it to heal your Batariel. 
Ensnaring Roots is a must have. This spell can create distance between the enemy and your Windweavers. This card is also very effective when you need to take out a spawner in difficulty 10. 

Mark of the keeper is a must have in difficulty 10, but in difficulty 9 or lower it is not needed.
No Shaman? Yes, Shaman is not used in Batariel decks. Shaman is a unit that rarely attacks, and it binds power. For every Shaman you have, you have one Windweaver less. There are only 20 deck slots, and Shaman should not be in there.
 
Tier 2 options
On Tier 2, there are a couple options to choose from. When you start with Fire, you are generally safe to use your Nomads + Mine and use Eruptions on the spawning camp. In difficulty 10, you can bring Gladiatrix (Nature affinity) with Curse of Oink, or you can bring Shadow Phoenix with Embalmer’s Shrine. If you start with Shadow, your best option is to bring Shadow Phoenix. You need three Shadow Phoenix to kill a small spawning camp.

or

When you are playing difficulty 10, if you start with fire and want to use Phoenix, you will need to do an additional orb swap for your Batariel. This sets you back some power, but might be required sometimes.
 Less optimal, but alternative options are Bandit Minefield and Lavafield.
 
Core of a Batariel deck
The core of a Batariel deck are Life Weaving and Unholy Hero. Life Weaving keeps Batariel alive, and Unholy hero allows the Batariel to do insane amounts of damage.

Heals are important in every deck, Batariel decks are no exceptions. You should bring at least one heal spell, such as Regrowth. It is recommended to bring a backup heal in case you run out of Regrowth charges or the card is on cooldown. Two options are Surge of Light and Equilibrium (Frost affinity). It is totally fine to bring all three heal spells, as even some veteran players do.

Very important spells to bring are both Frenetic Assault’s (one is mandatory, the other is quality of life), Infect (mainly quality of life, you can do without) and Disenchant (depending on the enemy faction). Frenetic Assault makes sure the enemies are not attacking your Batariel, but each other, which gives Batariel more survivability. Both Frenetic Assaults are recommended as they have a long cooldown between casts, and you might need more than one in a difficult camp. Infect serves a similar purpose and cleans up remains. After the enemies kill each other with the Frenetic Assault effect, two Nightcrawlers will spawn from each corpse, up to 10 corpses. 20 extra units to soak up damage and to do more incremental damage.

Batariel needs to have his burning passive ability active as soon as possible. He does this be damaging enemy units or buildings. If Batariel is not able to attack, due to a paralyze effect, the chances are the Batariel will die. To solve this, Disenchant is a must-have when you fight enemies like Bandits and Twilight. Those otherwise annoying Willzappers and Windhunters are now useless when you bring Disenchant. Bandits have one boss that permanently reduces the attack by 50% when it does damage: the Equestrian Twins. This debuff can also be nullified with Disenchant.

There are two more must have cards in every Batariel deck, which are Curse of Oink and Nether Warp. Curse of Oink was mentioned earlier as well in the Tier 2 section, but it is also an all-star when Batariel is out already. Curse of Oink is an instant CC (crowd control) spell. Whenever Disenchant is on cooldown, or whenever there are scary enemy units, Curse of Oink can keep incoming damage to a minimum. Keep in mind, this has no synergy with Frenetic Assault.

When entering an enemy camp, you want to position your burning Batariel in a location where it can either hit as many enemies as possible, or where it can take out a spawner. Nether Warp is the solution for this. After you Batariels AoE burning is active, you can warp him further into the camp. Keep in mind, all the enemies will be able to target him, so make sure you have some heals ready and Life Weaving active. Recommended is the Nature affinity Nether Warp because the Frost affinity debuffs your Batariel with a slow effect. Yes, the Nature affinity heals your opponents units too, but that heal is insignificant compared to the damage output of the Batariel.

When you have your core, there are one, two or three spots left for other cards. Thunderstorm is the one that is most recommended bringing as it is such a versatile damage spell. The second card is Soulshatter, as it can decimate smaller camps on its own, but you need to be careful as the damage also damages friendly units. The third option is Earthshaker. This card can take out crucial enemy buildings. This is optional, as Batariel should not have any problem taking out buildings on its own, but can be a quality of life.
 
 
Void return
Because spells are cycled non-stop in this deck, void return is of utmost importance. There are two options available for a Batariel deck. Either Shrine of War, or Cultist Master + Furnace of Flesh.
Shrine of War is the best void return card in the game for multiplayer maps. You use spells whenever you want to kill enemy units, and whenever enemy units die, the Shrine of War gives back void power. It is the perfect synergy, there is however a big downside. Shrine of War costs 150 power and has no continuous upkeep. You will need two to be able to keep it running constantly. You will need to invest 300 power, which delays your Batariel immensely. Shine of War is recommended in fire starts.
Shrine of War has been nerfed and now require 2 fire orbs, which forces you to play either the alternative option with Furnace of Flesh and Cultist Masters, or rely on a teammate. 

The ability of the Cultist Master is free, and it summons three Nightcrawlers that die after 20 seconds. When they die near a Furnace of Flesh, it gives back void power. Similar to Shrine of War, you will need to maintain the upkeep of this. It is recommended to have around three Cultist Masters to give reliable void return. If you have more than four, then consider building a second Furnace of Flesh or to alternate between the activations, but this requires way more micro. This option is preferred in Batariel decks that start with Shadow or in solo RPvE maps. If a teammate has a Shrine of War, you can kill the Cultist Masters and the Furnace of Flesh, as Shrine of War is superior to them.

 
Fallen Skyelf
Fallen Skyelf can play a critical role in certain scenarios, vs bosses like Twilight Hulk or Abaddon, which have very high damage output, or Hellhound who will eat all your units if you don’t kill him quick enough. And helps overall vs bosses.

 
Plague
Double Shadow starters sometimes gravitate towards triple shadow instead of switching to fire. These decks require more precise play due to the lack of cards like Disenchant or Earthshaker, but end up being significantly faster upon being executed well, given how strong Plague is. The spell speeds up camp clears in general and sometimes even allows very powerful pathing advantages as a spell combo around Plague + Infect (+ Frenetic) sometimes removes T4 camps on its own (ideally this even works against small boss camps i.e. Umbabwe/Bandit Lancer). Sometimes Disenchant cannot be removed upon facing factions like Twilight, but whenever there is an angle to cut the fire orb Plague should be your go-to choice when considering the orb swap with a double Shadow start.

 
How to kill a camp
When entering a camp best to attack a unit, preferably flying, because Batariel doesn’t dance around those, like he may sometimes when trying to attack ground entities. Also, because Batariel does more damage per hit with his normal attacks against flying units. If power levels/refund permits, then Batariels ability is a great way to enter, use it on a building cluster or a boss. Best to warp after front buildings are destroyed or nearly destroyed (possibly finished by infect). Infect should also be used when entering the camp to maximize the crawlers spawned, after the buffs with frenetic, not necessary, but can be useful, plays an especially important role vs Lost Souls and Twilight bugfest.
When playing vs Lost Souls always have at least two Batariels for later camps, keep one in front to tank all the debuffs and for ground presence to cast cc spells against spellbreakers, and teleport second Batariel in the back line, who will take care of the camp. Preferably, use infect to soak up the damage and all the debuffs as well. In case of 2 Lost Bane presence, drag the camp out use spells (with infect) and try to either use Batariels ability on Lost Bane closest to the spawner, and then warp, or if possible just warp in. Can also try to power through after dragging the camp after getting rid of Lost Banes and having crawlers, enemies won’t pose as much threat even if they respawn, just keep eyes on Spellbreakers.
Against Twilight Infect is crucial, especially against difficulty 10, where Twilight gazers are bugged and reflect huge damage back to Batariel if not careful, crawlers soak up that damage. Best wait to approach them is to use Batariels ability and maybe even port them together in a bunch, then frenetic/oink and use Batariels ability. But be careful as you won’t have nether warp available to get close to the camp.
 
Bosses
Against Bosses, either focus them with Skyelf support, if they can be killed within the ability right away, or warp in the backline and deal with a boss after taking out the majority of the camp. Raven ship is very tricky to kill with a Skyelf, she most likely will get focused, must use infect and possible defensive spells on her, or be on a safe side and deal with the boss without, it’s not too dangerous to Batariel, just have to oink gunner when it spawns. Twilight Dragon boss also takes a while to kill, and Skyelf will heal it if used too early, so it’s better to used when more than half hp is depleted. Nyxia debuff can be disenchanted, which means that the Batariel can freely attack her. Hellhound is best if approached with at least two Batariels like all late game LS camps, and infect must be used. Try to get rid of him asap, before your Nightcrawlers die and he starts eating Batariels. Killing him is not a problem, surviving is.
Due to the Lost Spellbreakers Disenchant, engaging with Frenetic Assault (both work here) or Curse of Oink may save you a lot of trouble. Can be tricky, especially in non-motm maps where you don't know exactly where they're located. Against higher tier Souls camps with Banestones:
1 Banestone: Try to disable the Lost Spellbreakers as mentioned above, engage with Batariel ability onto the Banestone and port into the camp. Can be hard with Lost Dragons and such where the Batariels ability couldn’t be used, in that case Disenchant (G) works well.
2 Banestones: From my experience it's best to just wait for the camp wave to spawn into your direction, use Infect on it and engage the camp with the Nightcrawlers before Batariel to distract the Lost Spellbreakers.  Try to get one Banestone down as fast as possible and use Frenetic Assault + Nether Warp into the camp (hoping that Bata burns at this point)
Fire Bosses: Abaddon, you must avoid his ability at all costs, either send a unit in front to take it, or just dodge/warp in the backline and deal with Abaddon when you have taken care of the camp. Golem should be attacked with ability for the majority of HP, auto-attacking is dangerous.  Magma Fiend boss is the most difficult to deal with as a Batariel deck. Must have at least 2 units, if only playing Batariel in t4, have 1 or 2 extra when approaching it, go in with a single Batariel without any buffs and instantly warp in the back line and cc the camp, infect will help as well, then buff Batariel and take care of the camp. After the majority of the camp is gone, send in other Batariels to tank debuff, and buff the one not being attacked. For all these bosses Skyelf is crucial, may not be mandatory. Keep Fallen Skyelf in a distance from Abaddon, she will die very quickly if she is close.
 
General tips
You might be asking, but what about Unholy Power? That increases the damage of Batariel too, right? Simple answer, no. Unholy Power is basically a dead card in your deck, as it does not stack with the burning of Batariel.
When you fight Lost Souls or Fire, Disenchant is not needed, as these enemies has no way of stopping your Batariel via cc. When you start with Shadow, you can stay and you do not have to switch an orb to fire.
If you spawn your Batariel at Tier 3, it is recommended not to build the two wells at your Tier 4 orb location. This will set you back 200 power, and will only pay off when you are floating in power anyway.
Batariel does more damage with an attack than against non-flying:
XL Ground: 481
L Flying: 697
XL Flying: 1045
This is due to the longer animation when attacking flying units and as the damage per 20 seconds is fixed, attack types with different execution durations deal different damage.
 
@Volin has a in-depth Twitch Stream about Buffed Batariels, where you can see some gameplay: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1423615481?t=00h06m39s

Special thanks to the following people for helping out with this guide!
@arabikaa @Damo @Donaar @Kapo @Mocaak @RadicalX @Volin
 

I improved my record for Insane God Solo- 8.30.4

Ok well,
Let's start from the beginning - that is - the underlying reason behind this proposal: "The reason for such a change is the desire to fix the current issues where units which are spawned via script have no orb or power costs attached to them. This allows units such as Nightguard to swap with any non-XL units, not just those which are T2 and cost 150p or less".
Is that really an issue?? Ok, the fact that some units have to tier/power cost attached to them doesn't really make any sense. But, there are thousands of things (should I make the list?) that don't make any sense in this game, not only Nightguard. That's a huge part of why I love Battleforge - finding and using any single possible interaction is what makes me play. If we fix every single thing that's abusable/broken/not intended we'll end up with a monodimensional game. Well, while this previous discussion was a more general one, let's go back to Nightguard.
The one and only consequence that I see after the change is that NG will be no longer usable on many maps. Is that a good thing? I would say no, as reducing the number of available strategies is a bad thing for a RTS. I also feel like reducing the number of strategies will, in turn, reduce the popularity of some maps as well: I expect a huge drop in Convoy's playrate if the changes goes on, since NG strategies are very popular and liked by lots of players.
At the end, I simply want a game where I can play my pure frost deck on maps like Behind Enemy Lines & Convoy and where, if I want, I can tryhard them both with fast strategies made possible by NG (oh and on a sidenote - such a similar change should be paired with a ranking reset). This change goes instead in the opposite direction.

You forgot to add:
Behind enemy lines:
Reduced the number of games played per month by 50%
Nightmare shard:
Reduced the number of games played per month by 75%

So we buff eruption to be as strong as surge of light 😇

I'm in for that 😋

new all-time 😜

(For players who have no sense of humour, please ignore this post)

Fight in the past and present of Lyr to undo the invasion of lost souls. Do you struggle to beat lost souls? Does Mo or Rogan die and you don't know why? Do you know what to do with the Red King? Let us show you how to beat the map Empire!
 
When & Where
• Sunday 6th March 2022 at 1pm CET
• Voice channel Room 1 on the main Skylords Reborn Server
 
What the sessions involve
• Tutorial about the map mechanics, layout, important trigger events and how to approach the map with efficiency
• Break out groups with helper mentors to help with making modifications to your deck/s to optimize it
• Applying the knowledge ingame
• Feedback from both participants and mentors
• Question time
 
Basic Rules
• Must have access to Discord and a headset as the sessions are conducted in Discord live
• Must have a booking to participate
• Arrive on time
• Be respectful to our mentors and other participants 
 
How to Join
Book yourself in via https://discord.gg/XHpFSQDz 
 
Who?
Our mentor and session facilitator is Arabika from Germany. Arabika has been playing Battleforge since the old EA days for about 9 months before it was taken down. Since starting again with Skylords Reborn he primarily focuses on rPVE and campaign PVE. Arabika and his team (Donaar, Gam3over and co.) consistently place top 5 in monthly ranking in a wide variety of campaign maps such as Empire, Blight, GoL & Dwarven Riddle. He and his team love to explore many different decks on the different maps and try to achieve the fastest times possible. During the last year he has gotten  to know many different players and was able to gain a lot of experience with most of the campaign maps. Now he would like to pass on his  knowledge to all players who want to do the same, and hopefully inspire a new generation of campaign PVE players.

Please note that these workshops are part of an initiative called Project REBORN , the project is designed to educate and help players wanting to improve their skills and understanding of RPVE, campaign PVE and PVP. There are lots of written guides, YouTube videos and streams out there but these workshops are unique because you get mentored by some of the best players in the game through an interactive medium such as Discord. The workshops are not a lecture and one-sided, we highly encourage participants to openly engage in discussions with our mentors. Our large team consists of mentors from all three disciplines and staff who are passionate about empowering players with knowledge. Volin is one of the mentors you will meet in the coming weeks. 

I did complete rPvE 10 with Pure Frost a few times, but I wondered if anyone would be able to help me with optimalizing it?

Or is it "newbie" only workshop?

We have other great mentors too!

Mentoring from The Volin himself. This could be a once in a lifetime experience guys, make sure you sign up! 

Do you run away from Lost Souls and the Creepers give you the creeps? We can show you how you can go vigilante on the Vigils and banish those Bandits! Join us for the first ever RPVE Discord Workshop to learn how to Battleground better.
 

 
When & Where
• Sunday 27th February 2022 at 1pm CET
• Voice channel Room 1 on the main Skylords Reborn Server
 
What the sessions involve
• Tutorial about deck building, spawn mechanics, power management and gameplay
• Break out groups with helper mentors to help with making modifications to your deck/s to optimize it
• Applying the knowledge with your new deck on the battleground with one of the mentors
• Feedback from both participants and mentors
• Question time
 
What to bring
• 1 or 2 battleground decks that you currently play with
• Any questions regarding battlegrounds
• An open mind
 
Basic Rules
• Must have access to Discord and a headset as the sessions are conducted in Discord live
• Must have a booking to participate
• Arrive on time
• Be respectful to our mentors and other participants 
 
How to Join
Book yourself in via https://discord.gg/XHpFSQDz 
 
Who?
Our workshop mentor and facilitator is Volin is from Germany and 39 years old. He played BF casually back during the EA Games era and started from scratch again with Skylords Reborn. He quickly developed an interest in Battlegrounds and consistently achieves top 10 finishes in the monthly leader boards cementing his title as a game Veteran. Volin plays decks of all colors but has a soft spot for pure Fire and Bandit colors. Volin is passionate about teaching and passing on his knowledge to a new generation of players.

Single player 9 all time

Two player 9 all time

 
 

After playing a few days again too much rpve I have to come back to this topic once again. 🙂

More and more I can't understand this "Fire is to easy" thing. Many people that I see struggle with the high damage output of the fire faction. I see a comparable amount of wipes against Fire then I see against Lost Souls. Even some above average players struggle if they come with (solid) non-meta decks.
Meta decks struggle partly too, especially when they bring the standard Fire T1 which can perform nicely but must be played very clean. Same for usual FireT1 vs T3 bases - the meta here is countered very well and only works when it is played super clean. Don't get me wrong, that's all doable tasks, but playing random groups I see a complete different picture then Fundus and the TO do see here.
And for the Bosses I see even the total opposite for this beast "Abbadon" - he is unfair strong and wipes most solo or duo engages in the first attempt, as his damage is overpowered high. I think I cleared him 2 times in the first approach in all the times that I met him and have seen the same for other players. This counts too for very strong and known above average players.
The only safe engage is in maps where the last row is a long line where all 4 players naturally gather and walk the path together, but even here I saw very close calls. Another quite safe engage is when you have a Nature (big heals) and a pure Frost player (both big shields) have huge armys or support a boss killer like Bloodhorns - all paired with a running Shrine of War to throw in all the mass heals and shields and the boss is down very fast.
When he stays as he is, I am quite sure some of us will learn to approach him better and better - no question. We will find ways to deal with him. But in the end we would have the same situation as for example a T3 Lost Souls camp, with Vigils, a double spawn on it, that is close to the outer lanes T2 - doable for some of us, while most players just feel desperate how to engage such situations. Or an even better comparison would perhaps be a LS BG10 with Vigils on T2. Yes this is doable, by roughly (if at all) 10 players on this server. Do we really want to tighten things that much?

I already start to read "Oh no fire" as the "Oh no Lost Souls" that we have. I personally still feel the faction is very well balanced and like the complete different feeling to fight them with their high damage output but therefore low HP. I am a big fan of learning how to deal with that instead of running away anything that is harder then a Bandit map with single spawn lanes on T3 - but making fire harder would not have a bit support from me. And according to Abbadon - please consider if his AoE dmg can nerfed to a point where a good player can heal/shield against it if he brings his spells on point. It feels unfair if 3 Players throw in heals and still a strong army is wrecked like nothing.

Noice.
Based on the artwork I think Wasteland Wyvern would fit quite nicely (could also do Wyrm).
-Infused sobering
-Tainted sobering
^Same as the windhunter ability.
Not too sure about the attack name tbh, the current proposed one sounds good, so guess I'll just suggest Sand Stream as a potential alternative.

added last months 1 Player replay and new alltime record. YT will follow sometime.
Sub 11 was possible but wouldve needed a perfect run which I didn't feel like grinding for any more.
Major time losses were the t3 clear where the strikers survived due to teh strikers not running out towards my spawned archers. Usually an archer squad survived the first dive and would pull it. Misclick of the archers to all attack the birds instead of 1 pushing towards t3 results (in combination with first well being late 5 secs and the mentioned 3rd dive of phoenixes) in t3 and therefor bata being about 10 seconds late.
Secondly the warp into the Slavemaster camp was slightly too far. Best case scenario was the Bata coming out directly left of the artillery. Where he can turn and directly attack the Slavemaster again while still killing the spawn camp with his aura. Instead of the little dance that he did in the replay - time loss about 5 secs. After killing the income bata stops running for about 3 seconds. Same thing for a moment after getting bata through the portal nexus - another 4 seconds. The cc in the top right camp was not nice but ultimately only cost me about 5 seconds as otherwise he couldve been positioned better towards the next camp.
That makes up around 27 seconds (10+5+3+4+5) + a second here or there for slightly better clears per camp. So ~10:50-10:55 with a perfect run at least with this strategy.
Deck used:

I improved my record for Insane God Solo- 8.30.4

New record for the insane god 4:16.3
Donaar and Gam3over

Here are the final results. We hope you all had a blast. We will definitly do more rookie tournaments in the future, so we hope to see you there!

 

I am impressed. It actually sounds interesting.

HYPEE