Forest Elder - Upcoming Changes

[WindHunter 286]

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 0]

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 10]

New pest plants seem overcomplicated.

Magic link is nice.

[JarodDempsey 8]

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 by JarodDempsey

[WindHunter 286]

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 26]

imho magic link is fair and I like it a lot  

[WindHunter 286]

Added an Iteration 2 for Forest Elder.