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Twilight Slayers


Draconnor

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What they are good for?

I recently tried them on Bad Harvest pos 3 where they supposed to shine in early deffence against stonekins... and... hey were... not great. 2 squads are not enough to counter anything bigger to be honest  before their wall collapses. And in twilight deck there are no wall buffs. Maybe i shouldn't expect them to be equal to Church deffence... but still i expected something 😜

any ideas or other maps where they could be strong?

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Im not a very experienced cPvE player so i might be wrong but they seem completely useless to me even more than 2 squads cant counter a larger attack wave.

The worst thing is that they either require 2 Nature and 1 Fire orb or 2 Fire and 1 Nature orb so you cant support them with Glaciation.

With Glaciation(R) they would probably be decent in some situations but Razorleaf with 2 Thornbarks as support would still be much better.

 

Edited by Fundus
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53 minutes ago, Fundus said:

Im not a very experienced cPvE player so i might be wrong but they seem completely useless to me even more than 2 squads cant counter a larger attack wave.

The worst thing is that they either require 2 Nature and 1 Fire orb or 2 Fire and 1 Nature orb so you cant support them with Glaciation.

With Glaciation(R) they would probably be decent in some situations but Razorleaf with 2 Thornbarks as support would still be much better.

 

If you get an income of a "big wave", you most likely will not survive with two T3-units - no matter which one, right?

Also, Razorleaf (260) plus Thornbark (120 each) is a total of 500 energy, the equivalent would be 6-7 Slayers 😃

(Not saying Slayers are good, just if you try to judge them, you have to test under fair conditions)

Just for a simple test, I took this "enemies", which I would consider to be a big wave against 6 slayers walled

test.png.83fabfa2087c77e02bb7fea2c1d9c9cc.png

Result was one wall segment down (all others more or less full health), one squad of slayers lost. Not great, but not _that_ bad.

Edited by Kapo
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Could you post a replay of Bad Harvest Expert difficulty where you defend the Wagon with Twilight Slayers? I tried it a couple of days ago and i had absolutely no chance. With my Razorleaf(no T4) deck it worked just fine.

Edited by Fundus
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29 minutes ago, Fundus said:

Could you post a replay of Bad Harvest Expert difficulty where you defend the Wagon with Twilight Slayers? I tried it a couple of days ago and i had absolutely no chance. With my Razorleaf(no T4) deck it worked just fine.

I'm no Expert in all things Twilight, and maybe what you are looking is barely possible without really good supporting cards.

I was just arguing that writing they are "completely useless" while comparing two Slayers to a 500 energy "best in slot" powerhouse like a supported Razorleaf isn't really fair.

Edited by Kapo
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3 hours ago, Kapo said:

I'm no Expert in all things Twilight, and maybe what you are looking is barely possible without really good supporting cards.

I was just arguing that writing they are "completely useless" while comparing two Slayers to a 500 energy "best in slot" powerhouse like a supported Razorleaf isn't really fair.

The problem is that it was absolutely impossible for me to defend the Wagon with Twilight Slayers while i can easily defend with Thornbarks i dont even need Razorleaf.

For Bad Harvest Expert they are definitly useless at least for me and i cant imagine them performing better on other expert maps but like i said im not a very experienced cPvE player.

 

 

 

Edited by Fundus
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One of the issues we face as a balance team is that we are often unable to release changes as completed wholes, instead things are released as they are completed. Twilight Slayers falls into this category as there are other changes to Twilight we plan to make which we aid it in its job as a defensive wall-based unit. It is hard then to determine if the current situation is due to a particular weakness in Twilight Slayer or due to an unfavorable environment around it until we actually fix said environment. Of course we very possibly could have gotten the numbers wrong with Slayers, it is our first ever attempt at a T3 S-archer and walls do not scale over time, so we appreciate the feedback and will continue to monitor its performance going forward.

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On 9/28/2022 at 6:24 PM, Fundus said:

Could you post a replay of Bad Harvest Expert difficulty where you defend the Wagon with Twilight Slayers? I tried it a couple of days ago and i had absolutely no chance. With my Razorleaf(no T4) deck it worked just fine.

Here my first try with Twilight Slayers on Bad Harvest pos 3. Has worked directly and feeled pretty cool. Certainly many improvements possible, but as written, was the first attempt. Replay see below. And please forget the misclick when I accidentally sent all Twilight Slayers off the wall lol.

Attempt was played on the community map "Bad Harvest Pos3 Practice": 

 

2022-10-03_13-29-04_CommunityMap1P_bad harvest pos3 practice_diff3_s4031_Blashyrkh_time_0_11_40.0_v259.pmv

Edited by Blashyrkh
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Interesting replay so i guess Slayers arent completely useless but they are still pretty bad considering they are a T3 unit that was specifically designed to defend walls.

Defenders are T2 cheaper and can be supported with Glaciation and with their abillity activated they dont even need a wall.

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I think with compare you should stay within the factions. Frost is designed to defend walls better than many other factions. Twilight never really had good options here, if you don't include nature and fire cards. 

With Twilight Slayers and the Bombarde (+ a little spell support), you can actually get any T3 scenario defended now. In T4, Hatecaster is a great addition.

Apart from that, Twilight Slayers also work quite well offensively on the ground with spell support. At least for me they are a lot of fun offensively.

But even I am not 100% satisfied. I still think that a feature that works with walls should have been added (preferably that Twilight Slayers can't be pushed off walls). But that doesn't have to be a topic now. On the whole, I am happy with the new card.

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Quote

Frost is designed to defend walls better than many other factions.

Yeah but Twilight Slayers were also designed to defend walls so in my opinion they should be at least as good as Defenders+Glaciation which is a T1+T2 combo.

I dont understand why they are a "pure" twilight unit if they would require 1 Fire 1 Nature and 1 neutral orb they would be a much beter defensive unit. I dont even want them to be as powerful as Razorleaf but currently they are just way too weak in my opinion.

They should be buffed like Bandit Artillery which was changed from "pure" Bandits to 1 Shadow 1 Fire and 2 neutral orbs. Artillery was almost useless but now its a good choice, not as good as Worlbreaker but pretty decent.

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I understand your point. I see it similar. They could have given the card an effect that improves the unit for the defensive purpose on walls. 

What I'm getting at is that Twilight Slayers are a very good addition to a Twilight deck when it comes to T3 defense scenarios. I mean, they offer a viable alternative for Bad Harvest pos 3, which already indicates that they can handle most other defensive scenarios as well. With Stranglehold (g) you also have access to a good tool to keep enemies away from your wall. Twilight Curse is also a good option for eliminating problematic units like Vilebloods. So you have several ways to defend well with Twilights T3, you just have to get creative. But that is the problem that I see. Very good players can build a good deck around Twilight Slayers and can handle almost any situation with skill and experience. Beginners and mediocre players reach their limits here, which is why, as I mentioned at the beginning, I would have given more to the card here to be able to defend walls more effectively. So I agree with you in part, but I absolutely don't think it's a bad unit, even for defensive uses on walls.

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On 9/28/2022 at 6:24 PM, Fundus said:

Could you post a replay of Bad Harvest Expert difficulty where you defend the Wagon with Twilight Slayers? I tried it a couple of days ago and i had absolutely no chance. With my Razorleaf(no T4) deck it worked just fine.

I have no replay but i tried them (with fast t3) in role of defenders - to stop first big wave and hold long enough to place root defenses. It almost worked... but defenders with galavation are still faster (T2) and better. 

On 10/1/2022 at 12:21 AM, WindHunter said:

One of the issues we face as a balance team is that we are often unable to release changes as completed wholes, instead things are released as they are completed. Twilight Slayers falls into this category as there are other changes to Twilight we plan to make which we aid it in its job as a defensive wall-based unit. It is hard then to determine if the current situation is due to a particular weakness in Twilight Slayer or due to an unfavorable environment around it until we actually fix said environment. Of course we very possibly could have gotten the numbers wrong with Slayers, it is our first ever attempt at a T3 S-archer and walls do not scale over time, so we appreciate the feedback and will continue to monitor its performance going forward.

And I'm happy as hell that t3 archers appeared. But simpy i as a pure PvE unit i expected them to me something like... mine - a gamechanger Vs AI - AI wont target them with knockback same as won't move around the mine 😉 While i understand that mine is strongest PvE card and making new cards so strong won't be good... i simply counted t3/t4 archers that i always wanted - to be as strong as easy to counter 😉

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On 10/5/2022 at 3:29 AM, WindHunter said:

There are plans to eventually release T3/T4 archers for each faction. Issues with Twilight Slayer's orb restriction should be taken in light of this consideration. 

Well, I'd phrase it the other way around: The design of future T3/T4 Archers should take into consideration all the problems Twilight Slayers have.

My suggestion is to make them immune to being knocked off a wall and give them a bit more range. Or maybe a passive ability to slowly repair the wall they're on while not in combat, which would make them attractive because they'd take a tedious micromanaging task away ... but, on the other hand, that sounds more apropriate for a frost or nature T3 archer ...

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I'm looking forward to more high power, low durability (since S-size) T3/T4 archers. Frost has already very good support cards for mobile and static defenses. And now I'm curious to see what shaenanigans we'll see from Fire archers. 😁

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On 10/4/2022 at 6:22 PM, Draconnor said:

I have no replay but i tried them (with fast t3) in role of defenders - to stop first big wave and hold long enough to place root defenses. It almost worked... but defenders with galavation are still faster (T2) and better. 

And I'm happy as hell that t3 archers appeared. But simpy i as a pure PvE unit i expected them to me something like... mine - a gamechanger Vs AI - AI wont target them with knockback same as won't move around the mine 😉 While i understand that mine is strongest PvE card and making new cards so strong won't be good... i simply counted t3/t4 archers that i always wanted - to be as strong as easy to counter 😉

The goal of Twilight Slayers was never to be on mine-tier PvE level goodness. Not all of our new cards need to be of the high power level, we just want to provide a nice mix of new options for players to play with. Ideally, players should not be able to tell if a card is from the new edition, because it blends so well with the other cards. Ofcourse, being new cards, they get a huge spotlight on them and players (rightfully so) give feedback on them, but not everything will be a Banzai Lord 🙂

Thats not to say that Slayers are perfectly fine in their current state (I'll leave that to the balance team), but don't expect them to take care of all PvE troubles, and doing your dishes while  they are at it 😛 

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Only played around with them a bit. Aren't they the strongest archers in the game right now? Might work excellent with Strangehold and Mark of the Keeper.
Probably stronger than Rifle Cultists, who exists mainly for their ability and as a cheap t4 sacrifice.

I never leave my walls empty before t4, prefer to have some wind weavers on walls as air defense over using AA towers. I Don't expect them to singlehandedly wipe out expert armies. It's a bit unfair comparing them to Razorleaf root network which is one of the strongest t3 defense together with Necroblaster or church

On 10/5/2022 at 3:29 AM, WindHunter said:

There are plans to eventually release T3/T4 archers for each faction. Issues with Twilight Slayer's orb restriction should be taken in light of this consideration. 

Doesn't this miss the point of uniqueness of factions.
Also like aforementioned, at T4 walls barely keep anything at bay and S sized units usually die from one attack and or get trampled. PvE gets easier with every card added so I don't really see the need.

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7 hours ago, Sacriefice said:

Doesn't this miss the point of uniqueness of factions.

Also like aforementioned, at T4 walls barely keep anything at bay and S sized units usually die from one attack and or get trampled. PvE gets easier with every card added so I don't really see the need.

As long as they manage to make those units fit into their factions theme, I don't really see a problem here. And I'm fairly confident about it: Every faction has a T1-Archer, many have a T2-Archer and they are still unique.

As for the PvE difficulty: That's not quite true, If you, for example, add a card that is not worth using, nothing changes (as far as I am concerned, that's the point where Twilight Slayers are right now). That's also why I think that comparing it to Razorleaf + Root Network is a fair thing to do - when people are building their deck for a map, that's what they'll do. If Twilight Slayers are just not worth using if you could use Razorleaf, than either Twilight Slayers are too weak or Razorleaf is too strong. Since I think Razorleaf is fine, my conclusion is that TS could use some buff.

In general I think the game is at a pretty solid point with regards to new cards right now: While there are over- and underpowered cards, there is also a fairly large middle ground and if a new card fits into that middle ground, balance does not change much by adding it. Which is a good thing, more middle-of-the-road card enhance deck variability. For example Banzai Lord and Wasteland Terror made new and interesting Badit decks possible, but I havent noticed PvE getting easier due to these decks. That's the spot I'd like TS to be in, too. But right now, they are a bit overshadowed by other defensive cards.

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1 hour ago, Danol said:

As long as they manage to make those units fit into their factions theme, I don't really see a problem here. And I'm fairly confident about it: Every faction has a T1-Archer, many have a T2-Archer and they are still unique.

Sure they have unique traits, but starting a pve game by amassing t1 archers plays the same for all factions.
There is a huge difference between T1 and T3/T4 in terms of faction uniqueness and it would be difficult to balance a faction without early archer access.

My idea is that aside from essential units/counters that all factions should have, the less essential things should be either one faction is the only one that can do a thing or all factions but one can do it. E.g. Everyone has a fast T1 unit but frost. Only Shadow has a T2 XL unit.

 

Quote

As for the PvE difficulty: That's not quite true, If you, for example, add a card that is not worth using, nothing changes (as far as I am concerned, that's the point where Twilight Slayers are right now). That's also why I think that comparing it to Razorleaf + Root Network is a fair thing to do - when people are building their deck for a map, that's what they'll do. If Twilight Slayers are just not worth using if you could use Razorleaf, than either Twilight Slayers are too weak or Razorleaf is too strong. Since I think Razorleaf is fine, my conclusion is that TS could use some buff.

In general I think the game is at a pretty solid point with regards to new cards right now: While there are over- and underpowered cards, there is also a fairly large middle ground and if a new card fits into that middle ground, balance does not change much by adding it. Which is a good thing, more middle-of-the-road card enhance deck variability. For example Banzai Lord and Wasteland Terror made new and interesting Badit decks possible, but I havent noticed PvE getting easier due to these decks. That's the spot I'd like TS to be in, too. But right now, they are a bit overshadowed by other defensive cards.

That's what I said. It only gets easier, its a one way round. You are asking to buff it because you consider it worthless (because you consider razorleaf a better option). 
If it gets buffed to the point that it gets useful, then "nothing changes" in terms of pve difficulty may not be true anymore. The game already got way easier with cards like Amii Monument. In the first edition you XL creatures were quite rare before T4.
The important thing to note here is Razorleaf, Banzai Lord are rare cards. Twillight Slayer is not. Correct me if I'm wrong but pretty sure Razorleaf network is still one of the strongest pure nature defenses, so yes, I do think comparing a cheap t3 archer to a rare XL unit that also get some extra buffs from network is a bit unfair.
Not saying that there shouldn't be viable alternatives and maybe Twillight Slayer really needs a buff, but I'd be very cautious about how to approach that.
Pretty sure we have a lot more actual useless cards.

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The worry about faction identity is duly noted, but in this particular case I think things might not be what they seem. There is, for example, at least one T4 melee XL unit in every primary and hybrid faction in the game with the exception of Amii which has no T4 units. At the same time, this fact is not one which gives rise to complaints about muddling faction diversity as each of these units are sufficiently different so as to mask the faction that they exist within the same class. Batariel is hardly anything like Forest Elder, which is hardly anything like Dreadnought. Even Overlord and Grinder, which both have a self-healing mechanic, feel substantially different. A lot of this has to do with the fact that archetypes which use these units have highly diversified support spells leading to widely varying playstyles. The reason seemingly different factions like Frost and Shadow have T1s that feel similar is because they have overlapping playstyles even as the cards themselves are different. S-archer unit, damage buff spell, and support building are the general building blocks of both T1s. There just are not that many viable options in terms of T1s and generally speaking I notice that players are more interested in deck diversity at the higher tiers where cards tend to be more complex. 

Now I do think just adding archers to add archers would be a mistake. That is not what is happening here, there is a method to our madness. DRPvE has made great strides in recent months and is steadily moving towards release. At the higher tiers of this mode, there is just nothing worth putting on the walls as lower tiered archers wall off too heavily in effectiveness to justify either their population contribution or their bound power cost. What we are attempting to do is rebalance and redesign the various defensive tools of each faction and to create archers with strengths and abilities that fill the gaps left over after our balance pass. I am confident we can do this without compromising the unique identity of each faction, just as we have been doing in our rebalance of the more offensive tools each faction brings to the table.  

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12 hours ago, WindHunter said:

I notice that players are more interested in deck diversity at the higher tiers where cards tend to be more complex. 

I'd love more T1 diversity personally. But a lot of T1 units either lean towards PvP or just cannot keep up with the good T1s, making them incredibly niche. What's the point of Scavenger when you have Nomad for most situations for example? Especially ranged units are just so much better than a front-to-back army with melee. Or even pure melee, which can be just pure suffering. Amazon+Werebeasts+Fountain of Rebirth has great synergy but still does nothing against buildings.

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One reason every tier diversity is low-ish is, that decks are limited to 20 slots and almost all maps revolve around starting T1 and reaching T4 (notable exceptions Bad Harvest, Convoy). 

This restricts players into just 5 cards per tier on average, but since bound energy exists, the distribution is heavily favoring massing T1 units. And supporting them wirh stronger and stronger spells while sprinkeling in a couple of higher tier units while progressing. Only when a hard wall or T4 is reached, the army gets cycled. 

Dedicated T3 phases pretty much don't exist in cPvE and if they exist, there's Amii Monument to build up T4 in advance (Enlighten doesn't really do that IMO - anyhow back on topic...).

Cards on T2 and T3 offer diversity, specialists card and are generally strong, but - more often than not - are not required since a specialist card alrrady exists in T1 and simply waste time and energy by having to cycle your current army.

Bound power/void return is another factor I've noted. Decomposer and/or FoF allows Shadow to spawn Harvester within acceptable time. No other faction would be able to play a T2 300 energy unit in a reasonable amount of time, even if they'd have access to one (there are of course cPvE maps where poweraccumulation on T1 is high where it would be possible).

In conclusion, IMO the map content restricts more divercity in T2 & T3 situations. Power and void power mechanics hinders players in investing into T2 & T3. And lastly Amii Monument exists.

I'd rather see more map content tackeling those issues than more low tier cards that serve a function, but are ultimatly too costly for the deckslot. 

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On 10/8/2022 at 12:03 PM, Majora said:

The goal of Twilight Slayers was never to be on mine-tier PvE level goodness. Not all of our new cards need to be of the high power level, we just want to provide a nice mix of new options for players to play with. Ideally, players should not be able to tell if a card is from the new edition, because it blends so well with the other cards. Ofcourse, being new cards, they get a huge spotlight on them and players (rightfully so) give feedback on them, but not everything will be a Banzai Lord 🙂

Thats not to say that Slayers are perfectly fine in their current state (I'll leave that to the balance team), but don't expect them to take care of all PvE troubles, and doing your dishes while  they are at it 😛 

Its not that i want Slayers to be new best t3 unit - simply as a defensive, early T3, anti elemental, "wall mounter" - I expected them to shine on bad harvest pos 3 - while its defensive possition with wall segment that must be defended on early T3 against attacking elemental units 😉  If they aren't strong on this map -  where they will be? 😛 While Church/Razor deffence is good also in any other defense mission 😉 

BTW - Im not saying that razor is to strong - its great now after the nature patch. I love him even more 😉

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On 10/11/2022 at 5:39 AM, WindHunter said:

 At the higher tiers of this mode, there is just nothing worth putting on the walls as lower tiered archers wall off too heavily in effectiveness to justify either their population contribution or their bound power cost. 

But isn't that a problem because walls against t4 enemies are little more than cardboards, just there to buy you a couple seconds.
Don't see how stronger archers will fix this. Your best options would be CC, but this pretty much rules out fire/shadow.

I don't even remember anyone using rifle cultist on walls (ok they are rather weak but still).
Not to mention enemy abilities that just throw you off walls and deny them for some time.
Higher tier archers would all need resistance against this or justify it with some incredible power/price ratio or greatly buff the walls they are standing on

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