Proposed changes to ST

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Guest 4404014

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The power lies in creating 3 engines in one turn.

That's potential power. That potential is rarely realized and requires weak cards.

Blood eagle is the only removal that does exactly 2 damage that is meta at the moment

Anything does 2 damage. Crossbows, Raiders, Hammer, Drowner. Let alone cards that double that in one move: Falibor, Bratheens (or a lone Mage Infiltrator), Eagle to any 2 dmg card, It's like meta conspired against this card.
 
Are hot garbage. They leech value from many cards and then play into Morkvarg, Heatwave, Baron, Imlerith, Vincent, Igni, anything.

Good strategy when you see ppl actually including it is to let them boost it up before killing it even if it costs some symbiosis value. Because you know they will use up cards on it.

Wouldn´t argue that Hamadryades are hot garbage:
- When you play against SK they need a defender due to danger of Morkvarg + GS massacre
- When you play against NG they maybe need a defender depend on your opponents cards (Vincent, Yenno, etc.). If they have poisoned based deck you can even counter with purify/veil
- When you play against MO there is a high probability that they survive unprotected and they can even challenge dominance
- When you play against SY high probability that they survive unprotected (can be purified in case of poison/bounty)
- When you play against SC high probability that they survive unprotected (can be purified in case of poison)
- When you play against NR high probability that they survive unprotected. If you expect a baron you might consider protecting them

=> Defender is in Symbiosis deck of course also important to protect your symbiosis engine. Hamadryades also have symbiosis. So a defender/symbiosis row is a good strategy. That´s the reason SC defender should be improved a bit.
 

Guest 4404014

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- When you play against SK they need a defender due to danger of Morkvarg + GS massacre

Defender is a one-shot with Stunning Blow. ST it totally unplayable vs. SK these days.

you can even counter with purify/veil

And you pump even more points into that one unit without developing any value outside of it except the one symbiosis ping (with Dryad's Caress or Shaping Nature). Ultimately you lose the exchange because removal cards have bodies and your purifies and boosts do not.

If I play NG and got a Yen or Vincent and see Hema with vitality, I won't kill it right away. I'll let you waste your cards first by applying poison that I know will get purified and boost Hema even more. That way I only use one poison instead of two to deny value from one card. Same thing with bleed. Everyone will jump at the opportunity to deny bleed with Drayd's Caress when in fact it's as if they were discarding it.

Hema is just like Eithne in a way. Great on paper with all that potential. Wet dreams of value ceiling. But in reality it's crap vs. thinking players.
 
With respect to hamadryads: I agree with ya1. They are too risky and usually don‘t pay off. They get killed all the time because they are the only ST engine worth removing. At first i liked them but now I think, again, this is just uninspired and bad design.

Why not have her boost a random ally for every tick of vitality? That would play nicely into the swarm idea, synergize with the otherwise useless treant tokens and would distribute the boost more evenly ...

Defender is a one-shot with Stunning Blow. ST it totally unplayable vs. SK these days.

Sarcasm mode: well at least you still have your useless 2 pt dwarf token after the defender is killed by stunning blow. Awesome!
 
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Defender is a one-shot with Stunning Blow. ST it totally unplayable vs. SK these days.



And you pump even more points into that one unit without developing any value outside of it except the one symbiosis ping (with Dryad's Caress or Shaping Nature). Ultimately you lose the exchange because removal cards have bodies and your purifies and boosts do not.

If I play NG and got a Yen or Vincent and see Hema with vitality, I won't kill it right away. I'll let you waste your cards first by applying poison that I know will get purified and boost Hema even more. That way I only use one poison instead of two to deny value from one card. Same thing with bleed. Everyone will jump at the opportunity to deny bleed with Drayd's Caress when in fact it's as if they were discarding it.

Hema is just like Eithne in a way. Great on paper with all that potential. Wet dreams of value ceiling. But in reality it's crap vs. thinking players.

Yes, stunning blow against SC defender is a big issue. So it should really be reworked.
And against NG it can be difficult if they have a lot of removal cards. But against other fractions they are very competitive according to my view.
 
SC defender only brings his full value in a Mahakam Force dwarf swarm deck. Then the dwarf token can be used to be transformed to a dwarf beserker (Munro Bruys) or to get boosted by 2 (Zoltan Warrior). Additional there is a synergy with Mahakam Guard, Dennis Cramer and other swarm based strategies.

All the other defenders are not really so strategy dependent. So, I would like that you get 2 token dwarf in range and a shield in melee.
 
While we're at it, can we ask the devs why Congregate is a 4p bronze and Zoltan's company a 6p GOLD??? But I digress...

1. The only reason poison may need a buff is harmony nerf. That stupid move needs to be rolled back and forgotten, the sooner the better. The broader question: does devotion ST need better tall removal? I think one Vincent/Mork style card would be nice. Saskia for example could be changed to: Turn into a dragon and EAT a boosted unit. OR they could semi-revert Sheldon's change and make him hit for his power instead of his boost.

2. If they get rid of the dumbass harmony nerf, they won't need to buff MEcho. But if they don't, I certainly don't see any reason for it to be at 12 still. 14 seems reasonable.

3. Ugh, Eithne. Instead of making dryads 3, I think Eithne should boost herself by one every time a sym token is spawned. That way she can ping on deploy and be up to speed with the rest of them.

4. Should not happen. Definitely should evolve and keep current power.

5. Yeah, 2 armor seems good here. Though I can see how 7 removal for 4p is also pretty crazy... Maybe make it 5p?

6. Circle of Life is fine-ish. Maybe give it 3 handbuff instead of 2, but the card doesn't bother me too much.

7. Shaping Nature should replace any one of its pathetic options with the option to boost all tokens/units, and it should purify before using the other two options. Without thinking too hard about it.

8. Movement needs a win condition.

9. Vigor needs to be changed to Boost unit in hand by 1, cooldown 2.

10. Scouts need 1 armor. Hattori needs to at least be deploy instead of order.
 
Main problem with ST is how average it is against most factions (except SK). You can't win against Wild Boar and Hemdall.

So you are strong against nothing and you get stomped hard by SK. ST and SY are the weakest factions by far this season.
 

Guest 4404014

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6. Circle of Life is fine-ish

I mean it is fine. Maybe a little less than fine. But that is by the previous patch standards. And when one faction gets 4p and 5p bronzes with the value previously associated with epic golds, and the other faction gets nothing but "maybe a little less than fine by old meta standards" crap... then you see the results on the leader board.


SY is never weak. It's just the firesworn archetype - just like symbiosis - is not competitive with the other new things. The difference between SY and ST is that SY had no harmony to nerf. Harmony was a faction defining strength. ST has kinda lost its identity now. But SY seems to have retained its core strengths. I'm not sure because I never played it but as far as I know lots of people took it to the last big tournament. Almost nobody took ST, though.
 
I mean it is fine. Maybe a little less than fine. But that is by the previous patch standards. And when one faction gets 4p and 5p bronzes with the value previously associated with epic golds, and the other faction gets nothing but "maybe a little less than fine by old meta standards" crap... then you see the results on the leader board.

Maybe they could make it 4 removal, get rid of the random boost and condition the targeted 2 handbuff to deathblow. Or, if that's too OP, they could get rid of the targeted boost and leave the random one. But then it does technical have the nature synergy, too, so...
 

Guest 4404014

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Maybe they could make it 4 removal, get rid of the random boost and condition the targeted 2 handbuff to deathblow. Or, if that's too OP, they could get rid of the targeted boost and leave the random one. But then it does technical have the nature synergy, too, so...

Maybe it would be op but half the cards in every leading meta deck are op. That's Gwent. Every deck except ST.

My strong suggestion is make it 4 provisions. ST needs a control nature card for 4p. A nature Joust would be great. Or whatever. Just not 5p because there is no room for that in ST.
 
I'm quite new to Gwent but already got most cards in the factions and tried many decks that the pros use and climbed to rank 3. ST feels horrible compared to the factions. Lackluster and bad. It's torture to play them. You have to play almost perfectly, no room for error, while the opponent in most cases have a lot of room for errors. I started laughing after getting violated as ST when I switched to my ng/sk decks, it was like going from hard/very hard to easy in game settings.
 
Reverse the Nerfs
Harmony whole again, if its too much remove tag from hawk perhaps rangers. The rowlock anti synergises with the flexibility of all the units with different abilitys for different rows, worse hawk and willow are even ones with the harmony tag. Miner once had harmony and it was too much, the tool was there. And one of willows partners, its bronce counterpart, the whisperer has the same abilitys swapped to the other row.
Just another short sighted example. I guess it comes down to a lack of manpower and time. Just try a few games before release and realise this in one hour of testing. Sad

Oak back to 8
Just Look at the value and cost and especally synergy of row punishment (SK *coff *coff*)
(or don't if it turns out to be too strong)
 
the ST defender is by far my least favorite and played one too.. it was created only with the -now dead- dwarf archetype in mind.
ST just feels really bad. the archetypes have literally no synergy with one another and deckbuilding feels super limited. a lot of 4p and 5p cards are unplayable and many golds feel very underwhelming as well. while I like the symbiosis archetype in theory and really dig the beautiful artworks, it's just way too slow and feels like an archetype that would have worked a year ago. now the game is just much more fast-paced, if you need 4 turns to set up your 2point engines before being able to cash out points (eithne, freixenet, treants for rebuke etc.) the match is basically already lost. if you decide to go for fewer engines the points just arent there.

I really hope ST gets a serious rework to not only buff many of the unplayable 4p and 5p cards and underwhelming golds but also make the different archetypes more compatible with one another, like you can combine poison NG with soldier NG or assimilate NG etc. it just feels much more natural with the other factions.
 
Hell yes, you're right symbiosis is really pre Syndikate level, pace and style. Dying in beauty.

Funny though, harmony if you think about it was just a tag to pull all the different tribes off scoia togther and give it some payoff. "Hey we have all these wonderfull elves and dwarfs and dryads, dragons and stuff, but I don't have any Idea besides movement or choise of row should be in it because that is our only Idea we had back in W3. Let's add a tag that rewards for playing a bunch of cards that have nothing in common while we still try to figuer out a real archetype"
edit: "Kill Harmony! We finally have one! It's Symbiosis!
 
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I honestly wouldnt be sad if they removed harmony altogether. it was a pretty lazy archetype to begin with and it was obvious that it would grow continuely stronger with newer, more powercrept cards, because basically any ST card did fit into harmony.

now imagine waters of brokkilon if the dryad fletchlings where 4p symbiosis engines, which would make a lot more sense (and wouldnt snowball nearly as hard as in harmony) and probably lift this deck up to tier 1 by its own.
 
So many great ideas, so many great options. WB change to Symbiosis is such a simple, yet logical solution.
I still keep the hope up. It took a long time but NG and NR allready got a big rework last year, perhaps this long stale pause and Harmony as a new Idea gets Scoia the treatment by times. NG reweal -> screw that it doesn't work we go assimilate as proactive and poison as reactive, soldiers midrange.
 
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