Patch 12.9 first impressions

Lion and wolf attracted most of them as Mage+3xsparkling is basically autopilot on the first 2 turns

i really didn't lost a one game Vs Mage+sparks last patch with my acheron... blocking the sparks with skeletons or puppets was Much easier than successful spark bomb attempt that payed off spark + mage cost at the whole battle scale.
When i played the lions at first indeed i felt that it was little to easy to 'snipe' key or assault units but then i switched to ram as 'weakest' faction and had really good win-loss ratio with problems only against mass fangs and healing ball (3 healing sparklings was whole different company that Mage + 3 lev 1 sparkling bombs) but i had some wins Vs both eventually - maybe not more then losses but some.

Now when i play lions i feel that in some cases there is no way to win - when taking off each skeleton costs me some HP that mostly cant heal with my valkyrie and with gargoyles able to two-hit half of my units - while the rest stays below 10hp.


and back to skeletons and HB - i was one of the players insisting to lower its price from 14 for skelletons few patches back - but there was different meta back then and Lions have Knight fr 89ap, old primal attacks on Mage, normal healing on valkyrie, cheaper archers and 3 dannerans on sparklings... and when after 2-4 good turns lion player had 300 ap left Vs 200 points of skelletons - the fight was still going because of there were still efficient lion counter.

i agree with insensitive being less random of course. An option to make it happen is that it resists the first spell automatically and it takes 2 turns to the "insensitive" shield to be refreshed. (this means that the skill has kind of an internal cooldown). Just be sure to make the same mechanic for ring of ice/mist. It is annoying when it is super well performing or the contrary. About flesh golem or zerg route...this is wrong. I won vs 5xHB skeleton warriors +3x gargoyles with lvl 5 priest + lvl 4 paladin +3x HB skeletons. I think my list isn't as zergy as the other

Too easy to exploit, one could simply use a useless low cost spell before using the real spell he wanted to cast.
I never said it is impossible to win vs a zergy comp, I simply said that it is strong as the golem one right now, just depends what kind of comp you have against.

About the Golem Insensitive ability... at the time, it was the only way to prevent stupid things like 2 lvl 1 Priest killing a golem on their own, while the Golem player could only watch his unit die. Not so fun, really. The RNG part of it is a whole other matter, and I will certainly post my thoughts on it on the other thread in due time.
What startles me, is how a Worg or a PoB can have the exact same ability always on thanks to a low level unit in their faction, but for these cases it seems okay for you guys. Just, not for the Golem. Also, raw damage of the Worg can go higher than that of the Golem (and it can be buffed in many ways), and it can actually use its pursuit movements, but the Worg is universally considered like crap while the Golem is perceived as overpowered. I get the high TOU / HB part, but in a meta where every basic unit can have the Ferocious attribute, it seems a bit unfair.

Well, we can still see the problems with the Golem and we will try to fix it, but we want to take a slower pace for balance changes now, so we'll need to ponder much more on these than before - plus, I'm getting tired of the uproar that comes with each patch; when we patch the game, it is usually to put all the hard work we did in it for you guys to have fun with it, and not read a litany of "That's it! I'm quitting" or "This patch killed the game!" because of balance changes that were in fact, unrelated to the patch in itself (which should fix bugs and add new features if there are any).
Our pipe didn't allow for the balance changes to be independent of these, but it should be.
And we will be working in that direction too from now on, in order to avoid what happened with the last three patches (according to the last patch first comments, I should have lost my job thrice because of what we did with the Lion ).

MMM-MMM I agree.
The real fact about golem right now that makes him incredibly strong is that persons are still using swarm tactics vs him and very few are actually prepared to face him, by instance necros + warriors + 2 or 3 skeletons lvl 2 with ferocious could destroy golem comp.
I just won vs a golem composition because my skeleton archer (just 1) made 24 damage in 2 turns to that monster (and he couldnt attack my archer for a couple of reasons i wont explain).
But in my example If the other guy went swarm tactic with hardboled warriors gargoyles and archer i would have been fucked hard (thx god i remembered the name and i knew he was going to use the golem).
Same goes for wolfen with crossbow, very few are using them with ferocious, and actually they are probably the best unit against golem.
My conclusion is after I have played with and against golem:
This game offers more then one way to counter golem compositions, if for now persons are still used to play those swarm tactics that are countered by the golem, is not the unit being OP is the current meta that must changes.
This is my feeling about it, but consider also that may be that I am just happy that finally there is another way of playing rams that actually force the meta to changes, too long swarm tactic has been the WAY and now that there is a different way I dont want a step back in the FIXED meta direction.

Too easy to exploit, one could simply use a useless low cost spell before using the real spell he wanted to cast.

mine was just an idea to make it less random and im sure people can come up with something better. It is easy to be exploited yes but it provides the necessary spell protection without making it a coin toss festival. It will still "eat" a spell each turn, making the caster waste 3 mana or 2-3 faith which in the end impacts on the total damage/utility it can do.

lets say it absorbs every first spell:

- priest of saluel lvl 5 with 6 faith can either do bad omen (fail) + spiritual aggression (success) or vice versa. Instead of spiritual aggression x 2 or spiritual + bad omen (let's see if im lucky with my coin tosses!).
- Lion mage lvl 5 with 12 mana (hard to reach it in the current meta as maps are much smaller but lets assume it is the case): primal attack (fail) + celestial scourge (success) + primal attack (success). Now with 12 mana it could do celestial scourge x 2 and hope he is lucky. Notice how this would also make lion mages a viable golem killer other than the valkyrie and for the light soldiers.
- Necro lvl 5 with 12 mana (even harder to reach that mana in this meta): respite of the dead on golem (fail) + putrefaction (success) or Morbid explosion on golem (fail) + death wave x 2 (notice this takes time to setup!)
- black paladins might have the biggest middle finger with only 1 spell per turn and they should be paired with a priest to have a chance at using exausting touch but ram has so many ways to deal with golem regardless of that (ferocious, crippling shot, swarm etc....)
- wolven magical dealers always did too less vs golem that i think they will barely notice if your single lonewolf cannot damage it.

Too easy to exploit, one could simply use a useless low cost spell before using the real spell he wanted to cast.

mine was just an idea to make it less random and im sure people can come up with something better. It is easy to be exploited yes but it provides the necessary spell protection without making it a coin toss festival. It will still "eat" a spell each turn, making the caster waste 3 mana or 2-3 faith which in the end impacts on the total damage/utility it can do.

I would be nice if the golem could simply take half of spell damages and debuffs, but I fear that it could be very hard to implement so I didnt even post this solution.
The eat one spell solution is good as mine at this point only depends on how the devs think the golem should be.
But I think the counter debuff is better... what counter debuff i dont know maybe i would put a permanent -2 W and a damage roll of 8 (and I'd call the debuff "Nightmare" or "Acheron's Nightmares" gosh so cool bro) but I dont know if this is as strong as the current -50% expecially against spells like ET that you cast once.

About the Golem Insensitive ability... at the time, it was the only way to prevent stupid things like 2 lvl 1 Priest killing a golem on their own, while the Golem player could only watch his unit die. Not so fun, really. The RNG part of it is a whole other matter, and I will certainly post my thoughts on it on the other thread in due time.
What startles me, is how a Worg or a PoB can have the exact same ability always on thanks to a low level unit in their faction, but for these cases it seems okay for you guys. Just, not for the Golem.

I don't know if yu genuinely don't understand what (at least I) don't like about it.
Let's take a Worg for example: It requires you to have a lonewolf, to cast the spell repeatedly trough the battle, and if it casts it it can't cast anything else. In that, it is balanced. (For Lion, I don't play them enough).
In any case, it's a time (One activation) strategic (order in whihc you cast it, duration, etc...) cost (additional unit) difference that the Golem can do without.

Also, raw damage of the Worg can go higher than that of the Golem (and it can be buffed in many ways), and it can actually use its pursuit movements, but the Worg is universally considered like crap while the Golem is perceived as overpowered. I get the high TOU / HB part, but in a meta where every basic unit can have the Ferocious attribute, it seems a bit unfair.

The worg was underwhelming, mostly when compared to double PoB. It now is pretty good, a very good "Nuke" that can chain several weak units very fast if you time it well. It requires timing.
The Golem on the other hand is only weak against ferocious units (if they can hit it) and other Legendaries.

plus, I'm getting tired of the uproar that comes with each patch; when we patch the game, it is usually to put all the hard work we did in it for you guys to have fun with it, and not read a litany of "That's it! I'm quitting"

I plead guilty of this. The reason for this is that, between patches, you went for balance overhauls. The first balance when I came in had a balanced approach between elites, legendaries and lower level units. You then made a massive change tat made elites easily overwhelmed but upgrading their prices, and now it's the complete opposite with elites and legendaries mowing through lower stuff, especially since they can't be softened from a distance before impact.

The first balance of the Open beta was the best for me, imo. It had some balance quirks, but overall offered a varied gameplay with Regulars, veterans, elites and Legendaries being priced on the same scale. PoB was under priced/over preforming, spark-missiles were annoying, some spells were broken, but overall, it had a good balance and feel. IMO, and of course I'm not a dev but I take/took part in many betas/alphas, and the best betas were when the devs made many small steps, not few big steps. Big steps tend to make communities unhappy and irrational (aggressive) feedback since the changes are sudden and unexpected and you're making leaps.

I don't know if yu genuinely don't understand what (at least I) don't like about it.
Let's take a Worg for example: It requires you to have a lonewolf, to cast the spell repeatedly trough the battle, and if it casts it it can't cast anything else. In that, it is balanced. (For Lion, I don't play them enough).
In any case, it's a time (One activation) strategic (order in whihc you cast it, duration, etc...) cost (additional unit) difference that the Golem can do without.

Worg and golem are completly different kind of units with completly different roles.
In particular I can build for you many scenarios to demonstrate that golem without counter magic is absolutly useless while worg is not.
One was already posted by Jigoku but that particular case is very rare and I probably could do better (no offence Jinoku).
If you dont want to understand that they are different units just ask and I will try to show you.

[Jigoku]

I plead guilty of this.

No, you really don't have to.
If anything, I should be guilty. That was not even the part I was really speaking about.
Your feedback was always valuable and I'm happy to see that you still read / write feedbacks here.

I do agree for the quirks.
It was very problematic at the time, but as I said it was because we didn't have a choice (from a technical point of view).
We will change that, and I think everybody will be happier about that (and I would be the first among us).

For Sernior: no offense taken. I was stating a very abusive, schematic situation where priests could technically kill a Golem, but I think it never happened on live servers (we tested it on our side at the time though). I think we'll both agree that there are many others spells and situations out there that are worse for the Golem

For all the other long and detaillerd answers:
Thanks for taking time to write these down. It adds perspective.
I actually play Lion on the live servers... but certainly not against the very good players, so it doesn't help much.
Intern tests proved better for my experience, but apparently it was not enough. We will be take into consideration everything that you wrote for the next steps. Thanks for the replies.

You are more than welcome Jigoku. Thank you again for taking your time to give us some inside feedback on patches, and if you ever need a bit of abuse in your life remember we lions will still be here.

Thanks for the feedback Jigoku!

I still think that the Tiny Maps + deployment in the enemy range should go, since don't allow to think strategically against many enemy compositions: e.g., using the Golem in Lanever, the enemy has only to be lucky, or I can position it that it can charge/kill on the first turn most of the units that can do something against it!

Considering KotH maps, I think that the Acheron & Behemoth one ends always in a tie.

PS: The Alahan mage spell lvl2 is bugged: it gives only Scourge:Constructs!!!

I still think that the Tiny Maps + deployment in the enemy range should go, since don't allow to think strategically against many enemy compositions

This.