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Loptous

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While I loved my Bandit deck, Twilight was a second favourite where I really tried to make unusual cards like this one work.

Sadly it takes far too many "ifs" to make this card work.

First thing to consider is that this is a fire splash card, meaning you also have access to rallying banner which does the job equally well, is cheaper, permanent and can be played at T2 already.

In contrast, Twilight Warfare is much more situational and can only be used if you use it on an enemy first and kill it. So, you can't actually reap the benefits during the time of the engagement, so that's already kinda meh.

Next thing, the summoning radius just isn't very big. It does not give you a whole lot of tactical choice when it comes to unit placement, which sucks especially since the enemy will be moving around before he dies.

Moreover, both affinities are crap. Sure, the damage buff is nice... but that applies only to structures (why would you do that!?). So, you limit yourself to a scenario where you just killed one or more units and start attacking buildings next. And you gotta hurry up, as the buff will disappear very fast. 13 seconds 25% more attack is nothing.

The same for shadow. Life steal is a cool thing, and 25% is nothing to sneeze at... but again only 13 seconds? The spawning animation probably already takes 2 seconds, then you have to reach the enemy and then what is left? 9 seconds of 25% life steal? Let's have a closer look at this.

Assuming our unit does 1500 damage, this translates to 75 damage per second. Assuming the unit has 10 full seconds of life steal, it will deal 750 damage within this time. And as 25 percent of those 750 points of damage damage, your unit will heal by 188 points.

Sounds downright awesome right? RIGHT?

But there is one more thing: YOUR UNIT ALREADY SPAWNED WITH FULL HEALTH

Think about it.

 

It's just a weird card and I find it hard to think of a way to make it worth a slot in T3 without making it op. I think there are only 2 ways to go:

Make it T2 and tweak it
Make it T4 and give it some really potent abilities. Like the damage buff being applied to all entities and let the duration of the buff be extended to a minute or two

Then it could actually be fun. T3 is normally just far to small to include such a bad gimmik card like this.

Edited by Mental Omega
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Welcome back Loptous!

I don't really know what to think of this card, but I will never really use it. If you play shadow you have harvester, if you play fire you have juggernaut, if you play lost souls you have grigori, if you play nature you have abysal and deepcoil, if you play frost you have coredredge and frost avatar, bandits have soulhunter... why would you use this card? probably because the stats are like really good compared to his power?

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Welcome back Loptous!

I don't really know what to think of this card, but I will never really use it. If you play shadow you have harvester, if you play fire you have juggernaut, if you play lost souls you have grigori, if you play nature you have abysal and deepcoil, if you play frost you have coredredge and frost avatar, bandits have soulhunter... why would you use this card? probably because the stats are like really good compared to his power?

grigori is a L-Counter, Deepcoil doesnt counter anything. Abyssal are situational. Brannon is just an all-round good card. Too good. And XL counters in T3 come in really handy... The ability doesn't hurt either...

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grigori is a L-Counter, Deepcoil doesnt counter anything. Abyssal are situational. Brannon is just an all-round good card. Too good. And XL counters in T3 come in really handy... The ability doesn't hurt either...

Exactly. And on top of it, the card has an above-average stat/cost ratio among T3 cards that makes it hard to counter to begin with.

And about his ability: It simply wrecks Giant Slayers without any hope to bring Brannoc down. So if you happen to be a fire splash and have Slayers as your main T3 XL you better think of something as otherwise he will rip you into pieces.

But the best thing is if not only your oponnent but you too have Brannoc in T3, as the game will turn into a race which is won by the player that summons Brannoc first.

There really is nothing more to say about this card....

 

Brannoc is a nice example why balancing should still be a concern after BFR is released...

Edited by Mental Omega
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Do you have any idea how to balance this? Just reduce his stats, or something more creative?

In my opinion the card shouldn't exist in the first place. Normally neutral cards are only for support (see T2 neutrals) or are very expensive like Mo. When calculated Mo has an efficency rating of 21 while Brannoc has 34. As comparison, Juggernaut has 38 and Grigori/Soulhunter have 29.

Now, there is more than numbercrunching involved in balancing, but does help a lot. The 38 of Juggernaut is justified by the minimal support pure fire offers. Nonetheless, 34 is still unreasonably high for a card that can be accessed by every colour and give it whatever support you want (when compared to other T3 choices).

You can go 2 ways to balance this card: lower stats or increase price. But leaving him at 230 would still leave him with the insanely powerful ability, which is why I'd vote for a a price increase.
250 power cost: 29
255 power cost: 28
260 power cost: 27

Therefore a price of 255 or 260 would be reasonable given his splashability. Considering Mo, I think he should be even worse but would at least put him into a reasonable spot.

You would still need to observe the card after this change, so I am not sure what to do beyond this point.

 

I such cases, I am always for a complete rework, but making something entirely new can bring many pitfalls, especially in pvp.

Edit: I am sure some will be wondering about these numbers as it is no simple (atk + def) / cost calculation. The former mentioned way to calculate strength does not work correctly. If you are interested, send me a PM, I have no time atm to tell how I came to these numbers. But be assured that they are correct.

Edited by Mental Omega
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How about make Brannoc a L counter? Or, if that's possible, make him counter nothing (pretty sure that's not possible though).

Possible technically? Or possible practically? At first I thought all melee units counter something, but thats not the case at all( burrowers, bandit stalkers, grinders) so it would definitely be possible to make him counter nothing. It would still be a pretty strong unit, and I don't think XL counter was what made him broken...

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How about make Brannoc a L counter? Or, if that's possible, make him counter nothing (pretty sure that's not possible though).

Yes, it's easy to make him counter nothing (Just give him that symbol that looks like a star or asterisk. Shadow mages are units with no counter).

I don't think it's the XL that makes him OP. The XL/XL makes him useful for some decks even with bad stats, so I think that is actually the opposite direction that a nerf ought to go. This is probably not to place to have an in-depth discussion of balancing him, but I've been thinking about it for a while. We can start another thread or PM conversation. What if there was a way to make him immune to friendly arcanes? (arcanes are spells that don't do damage, like surge of light, ravage, lifeweaving, and homesoil)

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Yes, it's easy to make him counter nothing (Just give him that symbol that looks like a star or asterisk. Shadow mages are units with no counter).

I don't think it's the XL that makes him OP. The XL/XL makes him useful for some decks even with bad stats, so I think that is actually the opposite direction that a nerf ought to go. This is probably not to place to have an in-depth discussion of balancing him, but I've been thinking about it for a while. We can start another thread or PM conversation. What if there was a way to make him immune to friendly arcanes? (arcanes are spells that don't do damage, like surge of light, ravage, lifeweaving, and homesoil)

Why not post your ideas here: http://forum.bfreborn.com/index.php?/topic/1741-why-the-hell-not-brannoc/

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Lost-Vigil_shadow.thumb.jpg.172d233aa5eaLost-Vigil_nature.thumb.jpg.8552547c2770

To be honest I have always seen this card, and have previously owned it, but never used it. 

The stat line seems weak for something t3 especially when going frost/shadow, with the lost grigori and stuff, hell you could probably put harvester over this. It seems to want to have synergy with structures.

The green affinity - "Unit considerably gains in strength when positioned within a 20m radius around a friendly structure. It then has a long range of 50m and every blast deals 180 damage to enemies in a 15m radius around the target, up to 270 in total. Additionally, the unit will regenerate 25 life points every second."

The purple affinity - "Unit considerably gains in strength when positioned within a 20m radius around a friendly structure. It then has a long range of 50m and every blast deals 180 damage to enemies in a 15m radius around the target, up to 270 in total. Additionally, 25% of damage dealt by the unit will be added to its life points."

I just do not see the value in this card, in all scenarios. It can easily be squashed or blown up.

Edited by Loptous
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Lost-Vigil_shadow.thumb.jpg.172d233aa5eaLost-Vigil_nature.thumb.jpg.8552547c2770

To be honest I have always seen this card, and have previously owned it, but never used it. 

The stat line seems weak for something t3 especially when going frost/shadow, with the lost grigori and stuff, hell you could probably put harvester over this. It seems to want to have synergy with structures.

The green affinity - "Unit considerably gains in strength when positioned within a 20m radius around a friendly structure. It then has a long range of 50m and every blast deals 180 damage to enemies in a 15m radius around the target, up to 270 in total. Additionally, the unit will regenerate 25 life points every second."

The purple affinity - "Unit considerably gains in strength when positioned within a 20m radius around a friendly structure. It then has a long range of 50m and every blast deals 180 damage to enemies in a 15m radius around the target, up to 270 in total. Additionally, 25% of damage dealt by the unit will be added to its life points."

I just do not see the value in this card, in all scenarios. It can easily be squashed or blown up.

Yeah, not so useful for frost-shadow, but it's not bad. Just not really worth the deck slot for that deck.

It pairs well with homesoil and ice barrier. It's also an air unit, and some decks just don't have good t3 AA. (most don't, actually). It's also extra long ranged, which adds another use to it. The idea is to make this card slower, but uncounterable. Every once in a while I see a high(ish) ranked player use it--he gets wins because it's "anti-meta." It's also a staple of the church lamer deck. Sometimes I also see it in 2v2, where cc and buffs make it really difficult to deal with. Usually a Lost Vigil in 2v2 forces the other team to launch an offensive that's stronger than the lost vigil.

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Lost-Vigil_shadow.thumb.jpg.172d233aa5eaLost-Vigil_nature.thumb.jpg.8552547c2770

To be honest I have always seen this card, and have previously owned it, but never used it. 

The stat line seems weak for something t3 especially when going frost/shadow, with the lost grigori and stuff, hell you could probably put harvester over this. It seems to want to have synergy with structures.

The green affinity - "Unit considerably gains in strength when positioned within a 20m radius around a friendly structure. It then has a long range of 50m and every blast deals 180 damage to enemies in a 15m radius around the target, up to 270 in total. Additionally, the unit will regenerate 25 life points every second."

The purple affinity - "Unit considerably gains in strength when positioned within a 20m radius around a friendly structure. It then has a long range of 50m and every blast deals 180 damage to enemies in a 15m radius around the target, up to 270 in total. Additionally, 25% of damage dealt by the unit will be added to its life points."

I just do not see the value in this card, in all scenarios. It can easily be squashed or blown up.

Apparently you never saw that card in action before it was nerfed lol.

Vigil + Ice Barrier + Cliffs = Win. Pre-Nerf, unless you had dedicated anti air you just could not beat this card (that made countering it with a magma spores hilariously funny). And normally shadow/frost also has access to Gravity Surge.

Nontheless, the fact that there is hardly any AA in T3 makes this card extremely powerfull nontheless. It's just not completely broken anymore Just want to write a reminder that this is a dangerous card to mess around with.

 

You can still play it in pve and maybe making this card an XL counter could give this card some interesting versatility without making it broken in pvp, but I'd rather not change this card at all for now.

 

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Can this thing also be used to cliffdance? Same range as firedancer so it should work I guess. Anyway I used this card often in rpve with my WBG deck. Very useful in level 10 to defend you T3 base while building up strength to go for the T4 spot.

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Apparently you never saw that card in action before it was nerfed lol.

Vigil + Ice Barrier + Cliffs = Win. Pre-Nerf, unless you had dedicated anti air you just could not beat this card (that made countering it with a magma spores hilariously funny). And normally shadow/frost also has access to Gravity Surge.

Nontheless, the fact that there is hardly any AA in T3 makes this card extremely powerfull nontheless. It's just not completely broken anymore Just want to write a reminder that this is a dangerous card to mess around with.

 

You can still play it in pve and maybe making this card an XL counter could give this card some interesting versatility without making it broken in pvp, but I'd rather not change this card at all for now.

 

May I ask what the nerf was?

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May I ask what the nerf was?

I am not 100% sure, but I believe they removed the extra damage when a structure was nearby. Or at least they lowered the damage increase considerably.

I am not sure allCards is correct on that matter and is using old data. Can a beta-tester double check what is written exactly on the card, please?

Can this thing also be used to cliffdance? Same range as firedancer so it should work I guess. Anyway I used this card often in rpve with my WBG deck. Very useful in level 10 to defend you T3 base while building up strength to go for the T4 spot.

Yes, it could be used to cliffdance and it was in fact heavily abused. I agree with rPvE.

Edited by Mental Omega
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Treefiend_shadow.thumb.jpg.2c280b2c84e23Treefiend_nature.thumb.jpg.93939f200cc20

This card is very good I would think in some situations. Having them in groups is an absolute great defense. In PVP this card would be good, but I could not justify taking it over tree spirit, because it is pretty pricey and requires at least two of them to get the linked fire working faster. PVE this card is good, not great, but good. Nice for defending keypoints, you just set up two or three of them. Let me know what you guys think, I didn't play Twilight that much, so right now I am just going off of what the descriptions are, I have no clue how it would really pan out.

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Sadly, the fact that Treefiends do not contribute to the root network themselves, makes them weak creatures. They are fun to use, but you really need to build your T3 around them to make them work and normally it is not worth the effort.

Considering their power cost, they are already quite weaker to begin with than Thornbarks and they have a good ability. But at the end of the day you still need DPS to kill stuff and won't get those DPS from Treefiends.
It's like using root in pvp without you having units to kill those affected units... useless.

Moreover, the ability does not work on ranged units, so it is not even that great...

 

Imo, you should increase attack by 300, lower health by 300 and lower power cost to 135. A 1500 / 1230 (on U3) creature for 135 is nothing special and considering that under realistic circumstances "Linked Fire" is a dead ability and that Treefiends need to root before they can attack, those stats would be reasonable.

When comparing stats, just look at Fathom Lord for that matter... its 2100 / 1800 for 120 power on U0 and nobody cries about that either.

Edited by Mental Omega
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