[Frost] Revamping Frost Sorceress

[Gnougnou]

Hi everyone,

I'd like to address Frost Sorceress and more generally Shields among the Frost faction. I have never seen people using shield in RPVE, and I myself find them to be really cumbersome and expensive to use. I would love it if Frost had more units like Avatar of Frost, with poor HP but regenerating shields.

The current Frost Sorceress does really poor damages. Her actual use is the shield ability, which will cost you 20 Power for each unit shielded. The shield stays for 30 seconds. While really annoying when used by AI, nobody dares to use it for it is micro intensive and will cost you a lot of money in the long run.

To give Frost faction more viable options at orb 1 and 2, I propose to revamp the Frost Sorceress to be the "Frost Shaman" :

• Her basic attacks are removed.
• Her primary attack applies a 100 HP shield to a nearby friendly unit, for free (like Nature Shaman or Crystal Fiend) and for 10 seconds. A shield cannot be refreshed until destroyed (to avoid using HP as buffer and stack spam shield one unit). The amount of shield and the rate of fire have to be tweaked so to not break the card in PVP.
• Her special ability is unchanged.
• Her price increases to 70 (+10).

Alternative 1 : The card is unchanged except the active which is now free (to line up with Fountain of Rebirth). The card is still micro-intensive but is now viable and won't cost you a fortune in the long run.

Alternative 2 : The card is unchanged, except the active which is now an AoE that shields up to 4-5-6 friendly units (scale with card level). The card still asks for 20 power for each burst, but you can burst shield your army right before entering a fight. Those 20 Power would then be really worth it.

What do you guys think ?

 

Edited January 24, 2021 by Gnougnou

[shroomion]

PVE-guy would say: Yay! I never used this card. Lets make it awesome!

PVP-guy would say: She is already being awesome to my t2 fire dragons when i beef em up!

Devs might say: I see your problem here, but i play pvp so i don't have a problem.

 

Something like this, i guess?

 

[Gnougnou]

1 hour ago, shroomion said:

PVE-guy would say: Yay! I never used this card. Lets make it awesome!

PVP-guy would say: She is already being awesome to my t2 fire dragons when i beef em up!

Devs might say: I see your problem here, but i play pvp so i don't have a problem.

Solid 8/10. I would just argue that it's not "I never used this card" but more "I've never seen anyone using it in rPVE or missions and I also think it's bad" and not "Let's make it awesome" but "let's make it viable at the very least". For the rest, can't argue.

Edited January 24, 2021 by Gnougnou

[chickennoodler]

Personally, I think we should just buff Frost Sorc attack to suitable Medium size countering damage

level and start from there, but let's examine your proposals.

 

---> initial proposal

What? Like Wanderer? Warlock?They will waste so much time self buffing each other.

Unlike Shamans and Timeshifters, they target each other at full health and are really mechanically really shitty

as this wastes too much time.

 

Try it ingame, 4 wanderers(keep out of melee for test) or 4 Warlocks and 4 archers, vs 4 squads. Now try 8 of the same Archer squads vs the same 4 squads.

It's real frustrating watching them self buff while the archers are fighting right?

------------------------------------

----->Alt proposal 1

This is the most likely to work. Not overpowered or mechanically broken.

 

------>Alt proposal 2

T1 frost is the king of brute strength buffing. This proposal is too strong in combination with the cancer of frost

Frost mage+ Barrier + Homesoil.

 

It might even too powerful to give even 2 units ice shields at once at t1.

We have to keep in mind who we're giving tools to, this is a faction

with t1, +50%dmg, -40-50% dmg reduc spells.

 

I would not want to fight 6 ice shielded homesoiled frost mages with Wintertide protection attacking my

wells.

Edited January 24, 2021 by chickennoodler
added more

[Torban]

I'd prefer she got a damage buff into a viable medium counter. She's already a game winning card for the more difficult t1 expert maps as imperials are simply indestructible gods with a frost sorceress. I would also like to see her shield price cut but if I have to choose having her deal actual damage would be preferable.

 

Edited January 24, 2021 by Torban

[Gnougnou]

7 hours ago, chickennoodler said:

Personally, I think we should just buff Frost Sorc attack to suitable Medium size countering damage

I think this wouldn't be enough. Maybe that would help in specific situation in PVP, but that would do fu*k all in RPVE, as Frost Mage spam will always prevail. The idea here is to give Frost another starter, like Fire can go for Nomads or Nature can go for Mana Wings. With shields, using Master Archer & other T1 units to save some money would be viable. As for Imperials, they each cost 70 + 20 for their active, which is really expensive.

I mean look at nature, they have Dryad which gives a flat 25% resist to all surrounding friendly units, and can sleep any unit at pretty decent range, for 60 power + they have Shaman. I don't see how giving frost a not even as good unit can be broken. Not to forget that Nature also has Fountain of Rebirth that gives free global heal every 60 seconds...

Edited January 24, 2021 by Gnougnou

[Torban]

14 minutes ago, Gnougnou said:

I think this wouldn't be enough. Maybe that would help in specific situation in PVP, but that would do fu*k all in RPVE, as Frost Mage spam will always prevail. The idea here is to give Frost another starter, like Fire can go for Nomads or Nature can go for Mana Wings. With shields, using Master Archer & other T1 units to save some money would be viable. As for Imperials, they each cost 70 + 20 for their active, which is really expensive.

I mean look at nature, they have Dryad which gives a flat 25% resist to all surrounding friendly units, and can sleep any unit at pretty decent range, for 60 power + they have Shaman. I don't see how giving frost a not even as good unit can be broken. Not to forget that Nature also has Fountain of Rebirth that gives free global heal every 60 seconds...

I'll admit to not caring at all about rPve but for lost souls having some non small damage types would be useful. Imperials with frost sorc is actually viable for rpve though, my brother uses it to good effect as his regular opener. Imperials and frost sorc scale a lot better for taking higher and higher orbs and don't suffer from facing lost souls which is where the strat shines. Having a solid ranged damage source from the sorc would certainly improve it's viability further as current the sorcs are 60 dead power when it comes to dps.

Edited January 24, 2021 by Torban

[chickennoodler]

12 hours ago, xs0ulLess said:

i like her how she is

this isn't really meaningful as you're just drawing out a scenario where all concepts hit at once. This is expensive and would probably just happen if you let it happen

If I have a slight advantage, I would force this situation and you've now lost 2 wells and an orb and I win the game instantly.

That's what I mean about being careful with tools. It's a problem if the enemy has no chance to recover no matter how well they play

 

7 hours ago, Gnougnou said:

I think this wouldn't be enough. Maybe that would help in specific situation in PVP, but that would do fu*k all in RPVE, as Frost Mage spam will always prevail. The idea here is to give Frost another starter, like Fire can go for Nomads or Nature can go for Mana Wings. With shields, using Master Archer & other T1 units to save some money would be viable. As for Imperials, they each cost 70 + 20 for their active, which is really expensive.

I mean look at nature, they have Dryad which gives a flat 25% resist to all surrounding friendly units, and can sleep any unit at pretty decent range, for 60 power + they have Shaman. I don't see how giving frost a not even as good unit can be broken. Not to forget that Nature also has Fountain of Rebirth that gives free global heal every 60 seconds...

We can't give frost the same quality in t1 units as the rest.

 

It sucks but Frost t1, is extremely unbalanced. It all stems from Frost mage and homesoil +50% dmg aoe

Anything given to frost stacks with this combo.

[DukeDublin]

Frost Sorceress requires a player to be good. You need to manage unit groups, use hotkeys, and generally have accuracy with your mouse. The gameplay Frost Sorceress provides is 100% more engaging than Shaman (literally engaging, requiring input).