Patch 12.9 first impressions

Incarnation of Justice is not worth the trouble vs experienced players. Yes you can take down a legendary to half health, but any experienced player knows that 2 puppets can kill her imediately after.

I would only use IoJ valk if I was sure the other player is going to use a golem. Other than that even vs worg I'll take BAM BAM (lvl5 2x celestial scourge mage) which can also put worg at 1/2hp in 1 turn but not have to get next to it to do it.

Again I think that if we get to see the other players company (all of it) it would allow us to make assumptions about what he is going to field.

so you activate valkyrie with incarnation of justice when the enemy still has 2 activations that can potentially damage her? O.o no wonder why experienced players can beat it if it is played like that.

Also you cannot compare the valk with the mage...as it can provide much more stuff to the table (regen, favorable auspices etc...)

so you activate valkyrie with incarnation of justice when the enemy still has 2 activations that can potentially damage her?

If you have 90 ap Valkyrie in your band - its rather hard to have more units than enemy RAM based on both types of skeletons
Even Vs wolfen it can be hard if you have another high value unit.... so it may work for a companies made entirely from swordsman, sparklings and valkyrie... but wait - this makes you have tons of worst melee fighters ingame

so you activate valkyrie with incarnation of justice when the enemy still has 2 activations that can potentially damage her? O.o no wonder why experienced players can beat it if it is played like that.

Also you cannot compare the valk with the mage...as it can provide much more stuff to the table (regen, favorable auspices etc...)

No actually the thinking goes beyond that. Experienced players know to check when they see a valk that can put their elites at 1/4 health. hemce they will rarely leave and elite withing striking distance.

So when they do, do you go in asap to get the IoJ bomb off and potentially lose your valk (vs wolfen its automatic loss of valk because riposte=10dmg + off stance= 30dmg = valk dead) or do you wait and hope hes dumb enough to leave that elite where it is until the last activation?

Again this would be clear to someone who has tried to use this against good players, and believe me I have and I would not have deleted a lvl 4 valk if I wasnt sure it was not worth even the slot it takes up in your company management.

To answer the second part I do like fav aupices but its not enought to have a valk in your setup for that. As for the regen ill just copy paste the little text i wrote in response to Jigoku's post.

The Heal of 5

I would like to write a small text on this concept of healing a unit for 5 hp. It is not viable. You see player are getting smarter, they know its not as simple as dishing out dmg on other units. Thery have to dish out dmg on specific units, whether that be mages, archers, lions, or even swordman. Yes I said swordman, not kotl because when a swordman is the only thing standing before say a mage or archers its becomes a primary target. When dmg comes in its not going to be 4-5 units getting hits of 5-8 its 1-2 units getting hits of 20-30 (especially with this new deployment system). You say "Buffing a knight on turn 1 with a 3-turns regen before sending him in the heat of battle seems ok to me for that price" yes it seems ok in your plans, but then you send your kotl in battle and the enmy just ignores him and goes for any other available units because they prefer not to get riposted by kotl hence heal is pointless. This would be clear to you if you played more lion I think, heals of 5 are not viable, players are just too good now. We need big bad heals like necros have, make the cost high i dont care (make the sparkle give up half its life to heal other unit for the same hp, if hes going to die make him at least leave with bang).

The Heal of 5
I would like to write a small text on this concept of healing a unit for 5 hp. It is not viable. You see player are getting smarter, they know its not as simple as dishing out dmg on other units. Thery have to dish out dmg on specific units, whether that be mages, archers, lions, or even swordman. Yes I said swordman, not kotl because when a swordman is the only thing standing before say a mage or archers its becomes a primary target. When dmg comes in its not going to be 4-5 units getting hits of 5-8 its 1-2 units getting hits of 20-30 (especially with this new deployment system). You say "Buffing a knight on turn 1 with a 3-turns regen before sending him in the heat of battle seems ok to me for that price" yes it seems ok in your plans, but then you send your kotl in battle and the enmy just ignores him and goes for any other available units because they prefer not to get riposted by kotl hence heal is pointless. This would be clear to you if you played more lion I think, heals of 5 are not viable, players are just too good now. We need big bad heals like necros have, make the cost high i dont care (make the sparkle give up half its life to heal other unit for the same hp, if hes going to die make him at least leave with bang).

Main problem of new Valkyrie healing is that making it to be balanced with Knight healing - makes it unefective on units that loses not 5 but 10-15 hp each hit

And IMO initial healing of 5 was ok - even if not intended. Sometimes a unit needs imidiate healing that both RAM and Wolfens have... but its Lions that have lowest TOU on most units - so Alahan warriors with regeneration are great targets for enemy becouse not only they finish off an enemy - but morover they waste enemy spell... its small thing but annoying as hell ;P

No actually the thinking goes beyond that. Experienced players know to check when they see a valk that can put their elites at 1/4 health. hemce they will rarely leave and elite withing striking distance.

So when they do, do you go in asap to get the IoJ bomb off and potentially lose your valk (vs wolfen its automatic loss of valk because riposte=10dmg + off stance= 30dmg = valk dead) or do you wait and hope hes dumb enough to leave that elite where it is until the last activation?

Again this would be clear to someone who has tried to use this against good players, and believe me I have and I would not have deleted a lvl 4 valk if I wasnt sure it was not worth even the slot it takes up in your company management.

So...by your own admission you said you have a unit which makes elite thinking twice before rushing in. So what is wrong here? It is a good advantage to keep strong units at bait. Since it requires 3 faith you probably are "protecting" (aka in melee range) 4 units. Heck if this isn't good i dont know what it is. You are basically saying: if you rush my units with your fattie you gonna pay for it.

the situation you are showing, makes the lion player not the smartest guy in the planet. First of all it doesn't activate the valkyrie last, exposing her to attacks...and even exposed to an offensive stance (you know, if you are really experienced you check these things). Additionally...if you use incarnation of justice you MUST aim to kill one unit in offensive stance+pursuit or simply kill in 1 hit + pursuit. In the first scenario the valk dealt 45 damage...i think it is as much as my PoB usually does! and maybe suffered 20 damage which surprise surprise...is actually less than what most units would do to her. If a PoB is hitting her for 10 in the counterattack it is actually a VERY good thing as the valk would lose much more health normally (and do less damage).

so all in all:
-if you don't activate your valk last you are doing it wrong
- incarnation usually makes the valk take less damage (i mean a fang NORMALLY would hit her for 10)
- You gotta use it when you can pursuit
- incarnation provides "protection" even before being actiaved.

I have never used incantation of Justice but it is very powerful. The reason I have not used it is the limited troop slots and no way of undoing levels. It makes a Valk a pretty high AP unit and last patch elites and legendries were rare. I think the ability is good thematically and also practically. Like Deep Blue has said: It literally puts the fear of god into enemy fatboys, even before it is used.
I would like the Valk heal restored to the way it was pre-patch because it was not terribly powerful then, and now it cannot be paired with a 10 HP sparkling heal. The devs say that was never the intention so I don't really see it happening. I think all the Valk advances are viable, it is just hard to justify trying some when you suspect it will lead to having to delete a unit due to limited troop space.