Eve of the Apocalypse: Twilight

Fun new version with unpleasant changes.
Version_NY.4

Just the bugfix for the units that temporarily transform into other units.

Softmints adventures with Blooming Wreath~~

Played two games tonight against the AI.

The first game was 3v3 Gloom, I randomed Rue, and decided to see if Orb of Falling Ash would gain charges when switching auras. Answer: yes, so I maxed that asap, which was easy since it's great at killing troops and making money. (I didn't find it to be imbalanced, oddly enough). I initially picked Crown Auras for the Orb, but realised that the -damage aura works on buildings, so I maxed Crown Auras + Royal Guards, got the Circlet item, and took the Leadership upgrade to get Blooming Wreath. Its active heals allies for 30hp/s in a circle, providing the hero doesn't leave the circle, so now I could tank towers indefinitely thanks to guards soaking damage and being healed, and the -damage on towers. I supplemented this with the ice offhand to freeze attackers, and wallcrackers to break towers faster. It was pretty good. Soulbinder kept pushing me out of my circle of healing though, which was annoying. We won after I focused their buildings (I think I personally killed 90% of them?).

Second game, I picked AA because someone gave me a tip-off about her ult being good now. Turns out the cooldown is still a bit long (though I prefer flat reduction to lower cd per level). My plan was again to use Blooming Wreath + the ice blocks, and even when the enemy has 2-3 attack gens + towers, they can't break the ice as long as AA can keep in the circle. I like this synergy, but it is very weak to pkers since AA can't take pressure. Also, towers prefer to focus her over the ice, so she needs troop support. I brought Wretched Skull along a few times, it's good with the healing providing the enemy doesn't have big AoE.

Lessons:

• Blooming Wreath needs a circle of flowers to show the radius, since it's deceptively small.
• Meltwater talent is useless, the spawns are really slow and do nothing. I can't think of any good suggestions though.
• Charges on the Orb of Falling Ash would be really nice! If you do this and the sell price starts changing, just flag it unpawnable when it has >0 charges.

It's always nice to see someone use an underappreciated item.

Softmints wrote: Rue strategy

This strategy doesn't seem overly strong since you would had to have farmed quite a lot to get Orb of Falling Ash to have respectable power and also grab the other items that you mentioned.

Turns out the cooldown is still a bit long (though I prefer flat reduction to lower cd per level).

In 4a, it should be just 180 seconds across all levels (I ended up removing the lower cooldown per level).

Blooming Wreath needs a circle of flowers to show the radius, since it's deceptively small.

Will add in next version.

Meltwater talent is useless, the spawns are really slow and do nothing. I can't think of any good suggestions though.

They're most likely just to be used as another distraction to make it harder to break Ice Walls by spawns alone. And if your Ice Wall has completely melted by itself, you get free summons to add to a push (that has to be planned an hour in advance thanks to how slow they are).

Charges on the Orb of Falling Ash would be really nice! If you do this and the sell price starts changing, just flag it unpawnable when it has >0 charges.

-s wasn't enough? I'm unlikely to do this even though it is a much better interface because of all the other weird interactions I would have to deal with (like tempering the orb).

Orb of Falling Ash on Gloom made it very easy to farm. The lanes are close, pushes build up quite a bit, and even at low levels the orb can snag a lot of last hits on the enemy backline. Those +30's and +40's add up fast. Rue could never farm that fast on his own, so Orb of Falling Ash paid for itself and most of the rest of my inventory (the game went long, was mostly luxury items).

If you know the item's charges, you can just set the tempered item to have that many. It won't be complicated, and the readability would be so much better.

A targeting circle on Blooming Wreath might be handy, with short cast range so that you can't accidentally cast it from outside.

These are just small quality of life changes mind you. Nothing urgent.

Three minutes cd on Ice Wall feels long when you're building around it. It is probably not due a change.

The "b" is for bugs.

Blah blah

Changes

Halb halb

Changes
Note: Some changes are not mentioned on the wiki with this version because they will be reverted in the 4c2 version. (Generally this is because I buffed TC way may than necessary)

Won't be able to play today but here's a new version.
Probably the most interesting changes that occurred are BP's Skeletons and SM. Also someone should give feedback on how TC's AoE Degeneration works out.

Changes

Played TC thrice yesterday... new degen is a welcomed change IMO, now tc can hold a lane without problems and clones use it too. Yesterday when the clones managed to stay together led to some "destruction" moments when they decided to use it at the same time. It feels "powerful" but then again it's really easy to go out of range or cc tc to stop it, but AI can't manage that most of the time (and I banned IS every time... ). Haven't tried BP or SM, Scheba played SM but didn't figure out the changes.

PD: TC + SM = Good combo.

Jouven wrote: Scheba played SM but didn't figure out the changes.

I read through all her skill and talent tooltips and still can't figure out what changed. Are the changes only numerical? What is it that makes them interesting?

In other news, I still suck at playing SM.

Are the changes only numerical? What is it that makes them interesting?

It was mostly just number changes, though they should have been significant; Maiden Strike has a shorter stun duration with compensation that the nuke itself is stronger and the delay is a little bit shorter.

Also another thing to look out for: is Mortal Strike's healing reduction actually increased with the talent or decreased? Or just check if Necrotic Shot's healing reduction is scaling properly.