Forest Elder - Upcoming Changes

[WindHunter]

As part of our upcoming Nature balance changes, Forest Elder will be receiving the following proposed changes. Please note that all changes proposed here are provisional and as such as subject to change:

Iteration 2
1. Pest Plants Rework
   A. Remove 30 dmg/s poison effect
   B. Add +40% increased damage to paralyzed and disarmed enemies. -
   C. New Description: "Unit is surrounded by pestering weeds that poison enemy units within a 30m radius. All paralyzed and disarmed units take 40% more damage while being near Forest Elder."
2. Forest Charm:
   A. Duration: 30 sec --> 20 sec (bugfix)
3. Class: Beast Dominator --> Beast Commander

Iteration 2 Goals
We are looking to finish up the changes we missed in Iteration 1 and to bugfix Elder's Forest Charm ability which currently double applies its healing effect. Additionally, we will be changing the class from Dominator to Commander. This last change does not affect gameplay, it simply informs the player better of the unit's intended role. 

 

Iteration 1
1. Flower Power 
   A. Radius: 20m --> 30m
2. New Passive ability: *Magic Link* - "Unit is surrounded by a magical zone of 30m radius where summoning friendly units requires 30% less of the usual power costs."

Iteration 1 Goals
When we were discussing Pure Nature we realized that the entire faction has only four damage spells; Envenom, Parasite, Thunderstorm, and Noxious Cloud. It thus became quickly apparent that unless we planned on introducing a lot of new Pure Nature cards that creating a spell-cycle Nature variant like we see in other factions simply wasn't possible, and that is not a bad thing. We would like Pure Nature to be a unit and control based faction. Spells and effects will provide control aspects while units will do the heavy lifting in terms of damage dealing. 

As you might have noticed with our other suggested changes so far to Primeval Watcher and Colossus, we have left the ability costs of these units very low, actually free in Primeval Watcher's case. This is because unit-based strategies tie up a lot of bound power and will thus have less available for using effects. 

Forest Elder is meant to be the apex Pure Nature unit, but currently is a walking Regrowth on steroids and a slightly improved Wheel of Gifts. We wanted to leave the healing effect while adding a few things which will enable Pure Nature's unit-centric deck to succeed. As such, we decided to rework Pest Plants (purple affinity) to increase the damage enemies take while currently under the effect of crowd control. This should benefit both Forest Elder and its fellow units, as well as Noxious Cloud which will also be seeing changes.  

Another part of being a unit-centric deck is needing to summon units. Many players who splash Nature want to summon units in base, next to a Breeding Grounds. It thus feels unsatisfying when you have to summon a unit in the field and miss out on the major cost refund. We wanted to let Nature players stay in the field without waiting for other units to catch-up, as well as decrease the faction's bound power cost. As such, we thought it fitting to give Forest Elder a slightly improved mobile Breeding Grounds effect. 

[OwedEvil]

Are disarmed units simply under crowd control of any kind?  Would both affinities have Magic Link?  Nature should definitely not be a damage spell based faction, like you say, and I think it's a good idea to have support/control spells and units.  Forest elder should be THE apex nature unit, but currently is outshined significantly by other units like Batariel, Dreadnought, Bandit Lord (you know which affinity I mean,) as well as others, in both raw power and/or utility.

[Draconnor]

New pest plants seem overcomplicated.

Magic link is nice.

[JarodDempsey]

As someone who uses purple elder the changes seem nice but idt this will overall be strong/practical enough to be worth using vs green. 

My main issue is i dont see a way for nature to use it on bosses. Green peace would be the primary contender but it doesnt effect bosses so is useles in this case.

For regular camps having to spam a bunch of different watcher abilities and or wait for creeping to work really makes purple elder strat impractical to green elder when clearing everything besides bosses, all that work isnt worth only 15% more damage. Assuming peace even counts as a disarm you still have to deal with the tedium of positioning ranged units off the edge to make use of purple elder in a normal camp (not to mention the constant flaming from teammates who dont know any better or who are using melee forces). Because noxious cloud costs so much and has only 8 charges it isnt practical to use as a main strategy. It is best used either kill enemies in a stall situation during stacked camps with green peace or more commonly on bosses since it is natures strongest damage spell and bosses have enough health that they will actually utilize all of the damage output that noxious has. In the first situation new purple elder may be helpful although positioning means he will likely lose access to his damage and could potentially pull the rest of the 2nd camp which is not ideal. The second case purple elder buffs arent helpful which is the main problem. 

Perhaps if colossus ability worked on bosses and could allow activation of purple elder ability then there could be a worthwhile usecase, unless im missing something that nature has which can effect bosses I do not think purple elder will be worth using compared to green. At best we will be looking at a purple bata red bata situation where purple is significantly worse by itself which would be disappointing considering nature has lower t4 unit slot efficiency compared to fire.

Edit: one other suggestion ive made once before is to have purple elders damage bonus work on poisoned enemies as well. This would synergize with natures poison effects and work against bosses.

Edited April 7, 2022 by JarodDempsey

[WindHunter]

On 4/2/2022 at 3:26 PM, OwedEvil said:

Are disarmed units simply under crowd control of any kind?  Would both affinities have Magic Link?  Nature should definitely not be a damage spell based faction, like you say, and I think it's a good idea to have support/control spells and units.  Forest elder should be THE apex nature unit, but currently is outshined significantly by other units like Batariel, Dreadnought, Bandit Lord (you know which affinity I mean,) as well as others, in both raw power and/or utility.

Sorry for never answering these questions.

1. Disarmed units are units which cannot attack, either with melee or ranged attacks. Green Peace is a disarm effect, as is Rogan's "It's the Shoes," and Twilight Hag's charm. We are trying to use more standardized terms for crowd control effects to reduce player confusion. The intended goal here is that Forest Elder(p) will naturally synergize with the crowd control effects a Pure Nature player is most likely to use anyway in Primeval Watcher's paralyze and Green Peace's disarm.

2. Both affinities will have Magic Link.

It is very possible, if not probable, that Pure Nature in general and Forest Elder in particular will remain too weak after the suggested changes, so we are ready to release additional ability powers or stat increases if that proves the case.

[You will win with me]

imho magic link is fair and I like it a lot 🙂 

[WindHunter]

Added an Iteration 2 for Forest Elder.

[WindHunter]

We have been working on Forest Elder and have an update for its Forest Charm ability.

Forest Charm Rework:
   A. No longer applies a healing buff to up to 10 units over a 30 second period. 
   B. NEW - "Every 2 seconds, restores 250 / 275 / 300 / 300 life points to allied units in a 30m radius, up to 2500 / 2750 / 3000 / 3000 in total. Lasts for 30 seconds."
   C. Cooldown: 60 seconds --> 50 seconds. 

Forest Charm was previously implemented in an odd way whereby it applied a healing buff to individual units in range. This seems to have been a workaround to make Forest Elder's healing function similar to the way damage spells work where there is both a single-target and a splash damage component (ie. 300, up to 900 in total). Right now, healing is undifferentiated, meaning that a spell like Surge of Light which can heal up to 1320 life points will always divide that health equally among affected members. If there is only a single target, it will heal for all 1320 life points, if 3, each will heal for 440 life points each. Unfortunately, Forest Elder's workaround has its own issues. Namely, the healing buff cancels as soon as its target reaches maximum life points. If said target is then damaged, it will be buffed again, potentially taking two or more different heal buffs without actually needing them and significantly reducing the efficiency of Forest Charm in the process. Additionally, Lost Spellbreaker prevents the application of the healing buff, creating situations where it will never reach its intended target.

We have worked to implement alternative healing methods and we can now make healing spells function like damage spells. This means we can have a healing spell affect a single-target for one amount, while healing for a different total amount. As such, we can and are changing Forest Elder's ability to this new healing format. This should lead to greater consistency and higher on average healing. 

[Metagross31]

Sweet!

It's always nice to see, how much stuff we are able to change and improve by now, especially compared too the old days, when nothing seemed possible 😄

[JarodDempsey]

how will this effect elder stacking? like since the healing is coming from the elder rather than a buff does this mean multiple elders activating the ability will be able to stack? in the past/currently multiple elders activating at the same time actually lowered the healing significantly until you reached an unreasonable number of elders.

also am i reading it right, it seems pretty straight forward in that it searches for up to 10 targets every 2 seconds and heals them by up to 300 hp each right?  per the last paragraph it seems like eruption scaled up to t4 but backwards

also also whats the status of purple elder is he still keeping that damage bonus or is he getting something else cool like maybe antimagic instead

[WindHunter]

Purple Forest Elder is still getting the proposed changes. Multiple Forest Charms will be able to stack, same way all spell-effect style heals, such as Ray of Light and Regrowth, currently work. 

[Draconnor]

On 3/27/2022 at 12:48 AM, WindHunter said:

   A. Remove 30 dmg/s poison effect
   B. Add +40% increased damage to paralyzed and disarmed enemies. -

Noooo.... i loved shadow affinity Elder for that aura 😞 It was great as "first/only t4 unit" on smaller or faster maps.

😭

[Fundus]

On 3/27/2022 at 12:48 AM, WindHunter said:

1. Pest Plants Rework
   A. Remove 30 dmg/s poison effect
   B. Add +40% increased damage to paralyzed and disarmed enemies. -
   C. New Description: "Unit is surrounded by pestering weeds that poison enemy units within a 30m radius. All paralyzed and disarmed units take 40% more damage while being near Forest Elder."

Please dont do that one man army Forest Elder P decks with Liveweaving and Unholy Hero are one of my favourite fun decks. Just make Pest Plants stackable and maybe buff damage to 40-50 points. First you ruined Red Batariel and now this...

Edited October 31, 2022 by Fundus

[WindHunter]

In order for a second Forest Elder(p) to outcompete a second Forest Elder(g) in a 20 second period, it would require there to be 13 units simultaneously in range for the entire 20 second duration. This functionally means it is never worth it and if Forest Elder is your only T4 card and you only plan on using a singular instance, you will have a better time just using T3 units as Forest Elder has a poor stat efficiency. For the same cost, you can summon 5 Fathom Lords or Swamp Drakes, or 2 Abyssal Warders and 1 Swamp Drake. Given the coming ability buffs for Abyssal Warder, it will solidly outcompete Forest Elder(p) in similar circumstances, even if we buffed Forest Elder's poison to 40. 

I would suggest that before a person complain about one change to a card of a faction, they take the time to look up our announced changes for other units of the same faction in that same tier. If you did, you would find that we have announced significant changes to Colossus which will make it fulfill the role Forest Elder (p)'s is likely intended to have fulfilled as a strong singular unit. Upcoming Colossus Changes

Additionally, we do not balance Pure units around non-pure cards. This change will provide significant synergy with existing cards in Nature's T4 in a way that has previously not existed. 

[Draconnor]

54 minutes ago, WindHunter said:

 This functionally means it is never worth it and if Forest Elder is your only T4 card and you only plan on using a singular instance, you will have a better time just using T3 units as Forest Elder has a poor stat efficiency. For the same cost, you can summon 5 Fathom Lords or Swamp Drakes, or 2 Abyssal Warders and 1 Swamp Drake. Given the coming ability buffs for Abyssal Warder, it will solidly outcompete Forest Elder(p) in similar circumstances, even if we buffed Forest Elder's poison to 40.

But one elder is quite easy to manage and... and enjoyable as hell 😉

[Fundus]

I dont know how other players feel about this but the decks and strategies that i enjoy the most are not the strongest and most efficient ones but niche decks and strategies.
For rPvE 10 this is different but for rPvE 9 and Campaign maps strong meta decks get boring fast in fact niche decks and strategies are the only reason why i still play rPvE 9 every day.
A simple solution would be to leave the poison effect as it is or buff it but also add the increased damage against paralyzed units. Then we could still use one man army Forest Elder decks.

Edited November 1, 2022 by Fundus

[Blashyrkh]

Personally, I think the changes for Forest Eldar (p) and Colossus are right for the nature faction, even though I always liked the purple one more than the green one.

But I'm just thinking about this: Since Forest Eldar (p) with 40% damage buff might be the better choice in most cases in the future than the green one with the general 25% damage buff, the question is if we can rework Forest Eldar (g) to give the player a different playstyle here (a affinity change could also be possible).

Edited November 2, 2022 by Blashyrkh

[JarodDempsey]

On 11/2/2022 at 4:38 AM, Blashyrkh said:

Personally, I think the changes for Forest Eldar (p) and Colossus are right for the nature faction, even though I always liked the purple one more than the green one.

But I'm just thinking about this: Since Forest Eldar (p) with 40% damage buff might be the better choice in most cases in the future than the green one with the general 25% damage buff, the question is if we can rework Forest Eldar (g) to give the player a different playstyle here (a affinity change could also be possible).

on one hand im not really a fan of this bc really nature only has like 3 different actives at t4 to combo with proposed purple, creeping/watcher are both fairly delayed and peace has its own set of associated tedium especially in multiplayer. (grove spirit if she keeps her aa wouldnt be very practical since she does no damage and youd need a lot of her) 

on the other hand if green elder would be changed it often wouldnt be much of a loss considering wheel gives only 5% less damage and then it could be changed to something that could buff heals or cc or even something else and then there wouldnt be so much competition with purple 

======================================================

at this point id be more in favor of buffing purple elder in its current form or changing green rather than the proposed changes, i think purple doesnt offer a compelling enough strategy compared to green elder as proposed, even if you can get big numbers by using purple or by using purple with green post intended changes. if purple changes go through then it will make more sense to use wheel+purple for nearly max damage and little overlap. alternatively only use green because it is more slot efficient (in the case you need t4 units and buffed damage) and less effort and works against buildings and bosses whereas purple would not. In either case it makes little sense to change purple as proposed without changing green.

======================================================

On 11/1/2022 at 2:20 PM, WindHunter said:

In order for a second Forest Elder(p) to outcompete a second Forest Elder(g) in a 20 second period, it would require there to be 13 units simultaneously in range for the entire 20 second duration. This functionally means it is never worth it and if Forest Elder is your only T4 card and you only plan on using a singular instance, you will have a better time just using T3 units as Forest Elder has a poor stat efficiency. For the same cost, you can summon 5 Fathom Lords or Swamp Drakes, or 2 Abyssal Warders and 1 Swamp Drake. Given the coming ability buffs for Abyssal Warder, it will solidly outcompete Forest Elder(p) in similar circumstances, even if we buffed Forest Elder's poison to 40. 

I would suggest that before a person complain about one change to a card of a faction, they take the time to look up our announced changes for other units of the same faction in that same tier. If you did, you would find that we have announced significant changes to Colossus which will make it fulfill the role Forest Elder (p)'s is likely intended to have fulfilled as a strong singular unit. Upcoming Colossus Changes

Additionally, we do not balance Pure units around non-pure cards. This change will provide significant synergy with existing cards in Nature's T4 in a way that has previously not existed. 

idk about all of this, like firstly green elder relies on melee only to do damage while purple just has to be in range. this is important at least in rpve bc your prime target is usually the spawner and being melee means wading through enemies much of the time and during that time green elder isnt doing hardly any damage while purple is putting out its aura damage, 20 seconds with 10 targets and thats 6k damage (7.2k with wheel). also it is arguably natures best option as a solo unit because it has passive trash clear and super high stats. you mention low stat efficiency but nature has promise of life and in a 1 man army strat that means your army is unbound so then suddenly elder having huge base stats is great. i dont see warders outcompeting purple elder in low unit count army strats. 2.5k hp or the smaller pools of the smaller elders will require more frequent maintenance whereas elders huge pool means a lot more time for memory to cycle power (or a lot more time for power available for damage or cc) plus reborn units dont get wheel buffs so it is a lot easier to make wheel after unbding one elder than it is to unbind multiple warders and then make wheel which means elder will likely have even more ehp (8500) compared to warders, plus a couple warders cant compete with the trashclear purple has. the new spikes damage is nice but it is 4800 every 20 seconds and also prevents attacking for like 5 seconds depending on how long it is locked in animation so purple elder only needs 6 (5.5) targets in range for 20 seconds to deal as much damage as warder can assuming elder is also attacking during that time. also regarding colossus it sounds like thunder wagon but for units which is fine but overall a lot more work than elders passive damage since his new skill will be an active and require a lot of moving (though the combo with hero does seem cool so i cant wait to try colossus or even a group of them rampaging lol). lastly im all for new synergy but theres just too much overlap, nature already has 2 ways of buffing damage to enemy units, id rather have either a stronger building counter, a boss counter, a regen buff, a damage source, or even a cc extender before we get another damage buff taken by enemy units (yeah obvi it stacks with wheel or green elder but nature has plenty of ways to output more damage it would be better if it got new sources for that damage or something else like passive one man army strat)

[Draconnor]

18 hours ago, JarodDempsey said:

(...)  passive trash clear (...)

love this name 😉
and yes - its exacly why i use purple one so often in casual gaming...

[WindHunter]

In response to both community feedback and from testing without our PvE Taskforce, we have amended the upcoming changes to Forest Elder as follows:

New Iteration 2
1. Pest Plants (add to both affinities): 
   A. Poison damage: 30 dmg per second --> 50 damage per second
2. Forest Charm Rework:
   A. No longer applies a healing buff to up to 10 units over a 30 second period. 
   B. NEW - "Every 2 seconds, friendly units restore up to 300 life points, up to 3000 in total. Also affects the caster. Lasts for 30 seconds. Reusable every 60 seconds."
3. Class: Beast Dominator --> Beast Commander
4. Flower Power:
   A. Nature affinity, Gifted Flower Power: no changes
   B. Shadow affinity --> Frost Affinity (Blessed Flower Power)
      - Allied units in range are not slowed by unit collision

We have decided to add Pest Plants to both affinities after tests showed that melee-unit army compositions (Forest Elder + Colossus) struggled to be successful without heavy reliance on Thunderstorm. This should also help early T4 clears which often rely on a single Forest Elder. The Forest Charm rework is as previously mentioned and has shown itself to be much stronger than the original ability. As such, we have changed its cooldown back to 60 seconds. Given that Pest Plants is now a standard ability for Forest Elder, we decided to start from scratch and develop a new affinity effect. The goal here is to enable melee heavy Nature armies, but testing showed these were often substantially hampered by the slows generated via collision with enemy units. By removing this collision effect, Forest Elder(b) will enable melee units to charge towards priority targets unimpeded. The end result is that Pure Nature players should have two standard army compositions, one with Forest Elder(g) & Primeval Watcher and one with Forest Elder(b) & Colossus.

[Metagross31]

Awesome! Love to see Pest Plants stay!

Btw, will the radiua of the healing stay the same? I couldnt fins it in your post.

[Blitzling]

Nerf the bird chirping please

[Fundus]

On 11/23/2022 at 5:37 AM, WindHunter said:

In response to both community feedback and from testing without our PvE Taskforce, we have amended the upcoming changes to Forest Elder as follows:

New Iteration 2
1. Pest Plants (add to both affinities): 
   A. Poison damage: 30 dmg per second --> 50 damage per second
2. Forest Charm Rework:
   A. No longer applies a healing buff to up to 10 units over a 30 second period. 
   B. NEW - "Every 2 seconds, friendly units restore up to 300 life points, up to 3000 in total. Also affects the caster. Lasts for 30 seconds. Reusable every 60 seconds."
3. Class: Beast Dominator --> Beast Commander
4. Flower Power:
   A. Nature affinity, Gifted Flower Power: no changes
   B. Shadow affinity --> Frost Affinity (Blessed Flower Power)
      - Allied units in range are not slowed by unit collision

We have decided to add Pest Plants to both affinities after tests showed that melee-unit army compositions (Forest Elder + Colossus) struggled to be successful without heavy reliance on Thunderstorm. This should also help early T4 clears which often rely on a single Forest Elder. The Forest Charm rework is as previously mentioned and has shown itself to be much stronger than the original ability. As such, we have changed its cooldown back to 60 seconds. Given that Pest Plants is now a standard ability for Forest Elder, we decided to start from scratch and develop a new affinity effect. The goal here is to enable melee heavy Nature armies, but testing showed these were often substantially hampered by the slows generated via collision with enemy units. By removing this collision effect, Forest Elder(b) will enable melee units to charge towards priority targets unimpeded. The end result is that Pure Nature players should have two standard army compositions, one with Forest Elder(g) & Primeval Watcher and one with Forest Elder(b) & Colossus.

Sounds good.

1 hour ago, Blitzling said:

Nerf the bird chirping please

No please dont.

[Draconnor]

On 11/23/2022 at 5:37 AM, WindHunter said:

In response to both community feedback and from testing without our PvE Taskforce, we have amended the upcoming changes to Forest Elder as follows:

New Iteration 2
1. Pest Plants (add to both affinities): 
   A. Poison damage: 30 dmg per second --> 50 damage per second
2. Forest Charm Rework:
   A. No longer applies a healing buff to up to 10 units over a 30 second period. 
   B. NEW - "Every 2 seconds, friendly units restore up to 300 life points, up to 3000 in total. Also affects the caster. Lasts for 30 seconds. Reusable every 60 seconds."
3. Class: Beast Dominator --> Beast Commander
4. Flower Power:
   A. Nature affinity, Gifted Flower Power: no changes
   B. Shadow affinity --> Frost Affinity (Blessed Flower Power)
      - Allied units in range are not slowed by unit collision

We have decided to add Pest Plants to both affinities after tests showed that melee-unit army compositions (Forest Elder + Colossus) struggled to be successful without heavy reliance on Thunderstorm. This should also help early T4 clears which often rely on a single Forest Elder. The Forest Charm rework is as previously mentioned and has shown itself to be much stronger than the original ability. As such, we have changed its cooldown back to 60 seconds. Given that Pest Plants is now a standard ability for Forest Elder, we decided to start from scratch and develop a new affinity effect. The goal here is to enable melee heavy Nature armies, but testing showed these were often substantially hampered by the slows generated via collision with enemy units. By removing this collision effect, Forest Elder(b) will enable melee units to charge towards priority targets unimpeded. The end result is that Pure Nature players should have two standard army compositions, one with Forest Elder(g) & Primeval Watcher and one with Forest Elder(b) & Colossus.

It's so great to see that!