The Shaolin need a repositioning ability
I'm frustrated by how hard it is to make Shaolin combos work against an opponent playing reasonable moves. There's no way to get more than 2 combo points without someone ending their turn in your attack range or using a combo potion, which makes the combo system feel more like an afterthought than a key part of gameplay like I want it to be.
I know they're trying to fix the Shaolin team by buffing the Poisoner, but I'd like to suggest a different path. Instead of adding straight damage, increase the potential for combo plays by adding some way to move enemy pieces around the board. There are lots of examples already in the game. For example, consider what kinds of plays you could make if the Monk could knock back like a Knight can. You could set up a killing zone with a Poisoner and Windblade, then move Monk, knockback, Poisoner attack, Windblade attack, stomp with Monk.
This feels a lot more fun to me than having a Poisoner that is trending towards being much like an Archer, with solo gameplay focusing on move shoot shoot shoot peekaboo. If you look at the above example, the Shaolin team would produce lots of damage, but it would take setup time and there would be counterplay for the opponent. You could block the knockback, you could kill one of the units that is part of the trap, and so on.
I'd say that the best place to put a repositioning move on is the Windblade, as the unit is clearly pretty weak right now and its bounce damage is really not relevant to most plays. I suggest replacing that bounce effect with a repositioning effect.
The best way would be to allow combo points to remain in between turns, at a degrading rate of 1 per turn. If you are able to stack 2 combo points on an enemy, at the start of your next turn, there will be one still remaining on him.
Seemed to be the most obvious solution when we were discussing it, but instead we got a boost to a unit that was already pretty good (not archer good, but good) and made SL more reliant on Poisoner draw early.
Agreed SL could use a buff that doesn't encourage turtling meaning
*No pull ability
*No Aoe Healing
what could make SL move away from the turtle and provide a buff would be
*More movement
*More health
*More resist/armor
More health would encourage turtling, more armor "could" too, but to turtle vs aoe is kinda ludicrious. the main problem with the turtle is vs Tribe and DE. Since Tribe has no real major AOE threat, and DE are a threat so long as they can keep their VM alive. Problem with VM though is that it is hard to not commit them, and if the Shaolin has a shadow, the combo damage + shadow resurect is the end of a VM, so it keeps them at bay.
If the Monk had a charge-move like the Chieftan, but a mini one, say 2 square charge-hit, or if the windblade had a move-2 and attack option in the same move, then you would see a much more "agreeisve" use of movement and play. The problem with the team is that you use up an AP to move and then an AP to attack. If the winblade could charge-attack (move up to 2 in a line and strike 1 or 2 spaces to the left/right of it) then you would have now a unit that can deliver AOE out to a larger range, and could also really help to establish combos (windblade TAGs combo points on multiple units, other move up and get position plus added damage)
What you are proposing is making the SL turtle better, by enabling SL to force units into the turtle. If your buff is as proposed, all that will do is extend the killing range of the SL turtle, and all that will force your opponent to do is to stay further out of range.
I think your complaint has some merit, but I also think that you can design a repositioning ability that allows the DE counterplay against this. I think it's obvious that if the Windblade got the Impaler pull, that'd be too strong.
That's not the only ability one could design, though. For example, suppose the Windblade attack received a knockback against opponents at range. With this, the only way to push units towards a turtle would be to have the Windblade flank the enemy, and you could block their ability to do so if you needed to protect a particular unit.
I also think that DE having difficulty breaking turtles is a weakness by design. I don't have a particular problem with the idea that SL have the advantage if DE lets SL build up a perfect position.
Magnifiying the power of the SL turtle is unecessary, and changes which do not address how the SL turtle is wrecked are conversely unhelpful.
My concern isn't primarily balance. I want 3 hit combos to be something that actually happen in games, rather than just an interesting theoretical exercise. I want the Shaolin to need to make combination attacks in order to compete. I feel like the designers are pushing Shaolin too close to Council in terms of how they play.
I also think repositioning goes very naturally with combination attacks. TR do some of this already, with Typhoon enabling their axe/warrior combo or positioning for chieftain/witch plays. Being able to reposition into combinations adds another layer of depth to gameplay for both Shaolin and their opponents.
From a balance perspective, I think the Poisoner buff is obviously very good. Probably it's not enough, but I prefer to balance over time rather than making big nerfs and buffs.
My complaint is that I want the Shaolin to play more differently than they do; the Poisoner being so strong on its own really detracts from the flavor of the Shaolin. Sure, you can play the sequence you mentioned, but you can also simply attack three times with the poisoner. The Shaolin should not be about solo kills, it's the team play faction.
To this I reply
why do SL turtle?
mainly because their units cannot survive a wasted turn deploying to be able to use their combo points if they were able to due to increased health and or armor we would see them more risking to venture out of their turtle making or keeping them frail only encourages turtling and waiting for the enemy to go to them.
Those are totally cool ideas. They really get at the kind of play I want to see from Shaolin.
I completely agree that a lot had to be done to encourage comboing and aggression. I'd go for an extra combo potion, higher combo attacks, changing the runemetal to 25% attack power but also 25% combo power, increase Windblade resists and give it a symmetrical 66% attack. Hopefully changes like these would encourage aggression. Shaolin are currently very, very vulnerable to AoE. Maybe that's not a bad thing. Maybe if we make them aggressively viable enough - and don't allow them to turtle because of AoE vulnerability, they could be a better team.
For shaolin to start using the combo points properly in an offensive matter aswell without relying it to be a 2man combo with poisoner in it i think it would require alot of reworking to be done.
Poisoner:
*Nerf poisoner dmg to 100.
*Increase Debuff to 100%.
*Increase his movement to 3.
Taoist:
*Taoist somehow giving combo points to the rest of the team (for example he can cast a combo buff on allies, which also applies when he heals). This buff is removed at the end of your turn.
Monk:
*Possible aura, since hes a monk. He should obviously spread buddism around, inspiring his allies
*An debuff to enemies / buff to allies when he dies (similar to rage). I mean, he spreads religion :)
these are just some examples and the numbers are just to prove something and doesnt need to be super balanced for now :)
Thanks for the feed everyone. We're going to continue to watch the numbers as they shake out from the patch. It hasn't been very long yet. Once people get used to things, if there's still an obvious need for more balance, we'll see what we can do.
Thanks for the feed everyone. We're going to continue to watch the numbers as they shake out from the patch. It hasn't been very long yet. Once people get used to things, if there's still an obvious need for more balance, we'll see what we can do.
Please remove aura stacking, thanks.
Honestly the best change i could think of besides changing the windblade would be ro have a cosumable that revives and changes the unit to change teams... I think one would be enough. Then you can stop other teams from turtling easier. If that makes sense. Actualy i lied i dont think its that good but rather just an idea.
Thanks for the feed everyone. We're going to continue to watch the numbers as they shake out from the patch. It hasn't been very long yet. Once people get used to things, if there's still an obvious need for more balance, we'll see what we can do.
wondering how much of a change would you be willing to implement
tweak numbers? , new mechanics?, new units?
More on the topic been giving it more thought as to encourage SL to go out and play compared to just stay and turtle
Maybe give the monk a limited charge/attack ability up to his maximum 3 movement freeing up a crucial ap to get things started
Ideally it would be
Monk charge - move poisoner - attack poisoner - move windblade - attack windblade for 3 possible combo points
or
Monk charge - move poisoner - attack poisoner - retreat monk -retreat poisoner.
I disagree, because of SL's highly superior turtling ability. There is almost literally no way for DE to crack a good SL turtle - no way to make units survive due to combos, and no way to trade in your favor due to the shadow.
What you are proposing is making the SL turtle better, by enabling SL to force units into the turtle. If your buff is as proposed, all that will do is extend the killing range of the SL turtle, and all that will force your opponent to do is to stay further out of range.
To anyone who is proposing buffs to SL, I urge you to consider the effect of your buff on (1) how much better it will make an SL turtle, and (2) how it will prevent grenadiers from wrecking the SL turtle.
Magnifiying the power of the SL turtle is unecessary, and changes which do not address how the SL turtle is wrecked are conversely unhelpful.
Why do you say that the poisoner buff didn't help? Now, the poisoner and a vanilla 200 damage unit can 2 shot any vanilla unit. So you could have a poisoner move, a windblade/monk/taoist move, attack, attack, stomp. This is HUGE. If what you want is to see big numbers and not really a complaint about balance, well.. go play DW and drill a debuffed unit. =)
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