Initial Impressions: The Shaolin

I'm not sure what's the big deal about upgraded Shadow being hard to kill. We've had Dwarven Paladins forever, and those aren't exactly easy to kill either! I don't suppose people want to nerf them too then!

Is it really worth it to Runemetal the Shadow? Yes, on an attack tile, the Shadow will do 300 damage. But off the attack tile, the Shadow only inflicts a measly 150. I don't see the extra 50 damage being useful - if you add on combo damage does the extra 50 enable you to get certain KOs? 

In a Shaolin mirror, I sworded my Taoist to try to gain the upper hand in a Shadow rez duel, but my opponent's sworded poisoner + sworded shadow was still just barely two shotting my rez + healed units (790 dmg vs 750 hp).  These back-and-forth shadow rez duels, though sometimes long and drawn out, have actually been quite fun, as they take creativity and carefully managed action point use.
 
On a related note, have people been gearing up Taoists to fight with?  I've had some success with it but I have no idea if it's due to an overwhelming skill advantage or actual strategic merit.  I've been keeping Taoists on sword tiles a lot, however, and the sworded taoists seem to help me push (other Shaolin) much better.  I realize some people have said that swording Taoists is probably not the way to go, but after ~5 completed Shaolin games and a few more in mid stages it seems to help more than say swording a third poisoner or second windblade or whatever.

I could see it being a good choice, but it says something about the Taoist that he needs a Runemetal to keep up on healing.
 
They need to find a way to raise his output without turning him into a copy of the Cleric. Maybe set him to 200/200 so his raw output is still lower, but he can rez to 400 health.
 
Edit: The dragon combos with the poisoner amazingly well. The problem I've seen with it so far is that it deals it's damage forward. Generally the unit you want to target it standing at the front of a column, so all the remaining damage goes to waste. Would be a lot more useful if it delt damage in the opposite direction.

They'd probably have to scale the damage down, but not as much as you'd think. I mean, it does 600/450/335/255 totalling 1640. In contrast an Inferno that hits four targets does 1400 damage and also Stomps.
 
The Dragon brusts higher on the main target, but does't allow stompage. I think it'd be fine chaining backwards with maybe just a smige less damage.

Oh, I agree, but stomping is just as valuable. I think Dragon would function better if it were tuned to provide the burst plus AoE where as now it's more of a choice... And not even that, since you'd rarely choose the AoE.

On the other hand, only 1 Shadow. Which means once we deal with it, it's done with! You won't have 2 other clones self-healing all over the place.

In a Shaolin vs Shaolin match, I just used a double dragon to take and convert the other team's (unbuffed) Shadow with my Shadow, and then fed it a health potion, later adding more buffs.    The combination of two buffed/runemetaled Shadows working in tandem is totally unstoppable!!

Wow, that's a neat trick! 
 
Wait, does double dragon kill helmed shadow...? That guy is what the Wraith should have been. =/

Wow, so little trust for an old friend, Jared?  
 
http://i50.tinypic.com/qphzwi.png
 
Did our one random game we played a little while back "not happen" either? ; )
 
 

I'm guessing the other shadow was on a spawn tile. I've definitely converted opposing Shadows before. 

 
It was the Taunt. See 'em all bowin' to my gosu taunt skills?

I'm guessing it's because the Shadow could theoretically convert a unit on both deploy tiles, then the opponent wouldn't be able to deploy any more units.