Duelyst Forums

You thought Songhai was OP before?

#1

Hi guys

I usually never make post about balance, but here the situation is critical IMO.

While I agree with some of the nerfed in the patch (kron and kara) some others are quite questionable. Reva spell hai was already considered to be the best faction in the game before the patch 1.74 and I am going to explain how the new patch actually buffed the faction despite the saberspine seal nerf:

-Kron: What was the only tier 1 deck that didn’t use kron and actually got wrecked by it: Songhai. I am not saying that the kron nerf was a mistake I am just saying that it should have been balanced with an heavy nerf of Songhai.

-Kara: Kara was one of the few decks who had a decent MU against Songhai now it is gone. Once again not a bad thing on its own but because Songhai has not been balanced properly this nerf will have very bad consequences on the diversity of the meta.

-Siphon energy: Good job CP! You removed the primary weapon that vet had to defeat Songhai , the vet/Songhai MU was pretty even and now vet just auto concede on any buffed ranged minion or four winds magi.

-Zen’rui: the only reason why I thought that fox was okish was because of zen’rui, now fox is officially “THE BEST CARD IN DUELYST” congratulation.

-Shroud: What was the only tier 1 deck that didn’t use shroud and actually got wrecked by it: Songhai. Same story than for kron this one is a bit less obvious but still there.

And the counter balance this we have: a miserable saberspine seal nerf that Songhai players are laughing about : “I guess I needed 3 slots to put some MDS and make my katara even better”

CP completely misunderstood what makes Songhai strong. The boar/meld combo was just a detail on the ocean of OPness that Songhai is, this faction is so ridiculous that card like battle panddo are not even played while they would be insane staples in other factions.

So if we think about the future meta:

before 1.74 the tier 1 was:
Songhai spell hai
Vetruvian midrange
Kara neutral

In ambush we had cassy creep and lyonar aggro

Now we are left in tier 1 with:
Songhai spell hai

cassy and lyonar aggro in ambush maybe …

Well some will say “it is too early to make such analysis”, well what’s the point of making a prediction if the thing already happened, I prefer to be wrong than irrelevant.

15 Likes
#2

Sounds like you haven’t played the game since the patch. BBS + Walls means its much much harder for Songhai to play keep away. Even BBS + Gravity Wells means Ghost Lightning by itself can’t clear them.

#3

I’m really crossing my fingers here, but perhaps Creep Abyssian might become strong enough to compete with, or even counter, Songhai. Keliano has gotten a LOT more powerful with the Zen’rui nerf, and she is a key part in surviving vs Songhai. Cassyva’s BBS is also a direct counter to Reva’s.

#4

I thought so but I got completely destroyed this morning with cass shadow creep. Don’t know if it’s representative of the match up but this MU definitely got worst for Cassy. We lost kron and got a nerf on shroud which were both powerful tools against Songhai and once again the saber spine seal nerf is neglectable.

#5

As a vet player with salt. I tried browsing through the tools vets had and guess what I found, NOTHING. The faction has such shitty removals , yes, even fking entropic decay because why the **** do you need removals for thing that u can trade in with or hit close to you. With the only removal (it’s not even a removal, it’s just a dispel that debuffs the card) - siphon gone, vets now die to anything that is ranged. the ranged unit will just snowball out of control and yeap, gg. What’s worse is Kron (although needed a nerf) was the only answer to songhais for almost every single faction to slow them down, now it’s in the shit tier with astral crusaders and war talon.

As for my justification on vets shitty removals.

  1. Wildfire ankh, cost 3 mana and gain blast with 3 charges (if damaged). So if I do equip this in this already fast meta, Im basically playing behind from turn 1 or 2 onwards. I need falcius or sajj bbs to kill anything off. Or worse, equip MORE artifacts and fall further behind.

  2. Entropic decay, not applicable for ranged, I dont know why, but yeap, die to four winds or bloodmoon priestess even.

  3. Astral phasing. This card is decent but the problem is it gives bonus health (which is good), but how am I gonna buff some minions from my early game to a turn 3/4 kelaino, four winds? Vets kinda have a bad early game without pax and have to fight for board until they start dropping their gigantic mid to late game minions (pre-patch). Now, if they fall behind on board, they have no minions to cast this on, Kron is out of the game, nimbus is too slow and aymara doesnt do shit if it gets removed, when the threat is too far, it’s slow or you die before turn 6.

  4. Rasha’s curse. good card but using it as a removal is just shitty. 2 damage can kill off ki-beholders and heartseekers, but not fourwinds, kelaino, priestess, shadowdancers. you need primus fist and second wish or even first wish (for bloodmoon) for that. So it’s 2 card for one. Means I have to inefficiently remove a thing everytime the opponent throws something at the back of the board.

  5. star’s fury. This thing is so costly and you spend 5 mana just for clearing. What’s worse is that it’s so dependent on positioning. if the general is in your face and their threat is at the other end of the board, this card is basically dead.

  6. Pyromancer, not even a removal but the one of the only two minions with blast in the game. Dies to ping, needs buff to even survive a ping and still dies to any spell that deals more than one damage (basically any spell card lols).

  7. Starfire scarab. Again, not a removal, but the only other blast minion. Costs 5, does nothing on your turn. Weak to removal (too) and is a dead card when behind on board, a win more card in its current state.

  8. Scions third wish. May be good for zirix but I main sajj. However, zirix might not have that hard of a time with this card being usable. but the problem still lies with zirix players thinking this card is a bit clunky as having 3 of’s are too much but might be necessary with siphon’s nerf.

  9. Rae and energy siphon. Like I said, range limitation basically means they’re useless.

  10. Silhouette tracers. 4 mana for an underwhelming 2-6. Only teleports ur general upfront and u need another removal in hand like decay, sajj bbs and even falcius. You need to give up your position plus another card just to reach. And also it’s a costly combo.

  11. Saberspine tigers. Rush unit, reach, direct damage. but it can only kill bloodmoon on its own. Most of the time when bloodmoons are dropped, its accompanied by abyssians trading in their wraithlings, and their bloodmoon will be protected by a bariicade of 1-1’s, making this card close to useless to help out on vetruvians range limitation.

  12. Wind Shrike. An underwhelming 4 drop considering how important 4 drops are and the other better alternatives. The card on its own dies to any removal that deals 3 damage or cleanly removes it. Which is literally 90% of the played removals of the game. Does nothing on the turn it’s played. Although it can fly and replaces itself, but it doesnt do anything to help out with removing threats unless playing ahead on board (which is hard as it is already).

  13. Lightbenders. best candidate so far but still unplayable if units are placed too far away.

  14. Zenrui for only works for kelainos and is nerfed to a 6 drop.

  15. dust wailers. The body sucks and costs 6 too. Also 3 damage doesnt kill anything but bloodmoons, which is too late by then.

  16. Sunset Paragon. Anothe candidate but has the same issue with lightbender, Cant reach too far. Doesnt kill kelaino and might not be able to be placed on top of a bloodmoon with a barricade of wraithlings.

  17. Grovekeepers. cost 5, which is alot when u just need some cheap dispels. Also it only kills frenzy and provoke, which doesnt even help with the mentioned minions (but it is a removal).

  18. Shrouds. 2 mana for a 1-1 that dies to ping. But it is able to reach slightly further than a pragon/ lightbender. Still, very bad as it is atm.

  19. Tethermancer. 4 mana for a 1-6 is sooooo bad and it clogs up the most important 4 drops. Dispels things that damages it. Prone to removal and artifacts. Can only dispel selected minions on the next turn. Limited by range too.

  20. Psychic conduit. Only applies to kelaino and it doesnt even kill it off.

  21. Dominate will. again, range. 7mana.

Like I dont get why is a perfectly balanced dispel (it’s not even that good, it’s just the only one that doesnt suck as badly as the other vetruvian spells) is nerfed, I really dont get it. It does nothing for the faction to gain value when that faction is a value and control faction. It doesnt dispel a space but an enemy minion only which is a problem vs mechazors and magamrs at times. It costs 0 (the only upside) but only dispels something, the body is still there. Im just gonna keep trying and testing out undiscovered ways of fixing this issue but it seems quite abysmal atm.

9 Likes
Will the game be more interesting if neutral dispel minions dont exist?
#6

Reminds me of a song…“I’ve gotta ladder, gotta ladder full of Songhai…yeah…” :wink:

1 Like
#7

i could maybe understand that the siphon energy nerf is better for the game in the long term if they come up with other balance changes/ new cards but i just cant figure out by myself why they nerfed shroud?

fuck why?
they just buffed aggro(songhai)

i mean, do they play their own game? if you dont do CP let me explain it to you --> just go FACE and win

the skill which is required to play duelyst is decreasing from patch to patch, feels like fucking hearthstone

#8

This is what I was afraid of. For now, I’ve chosen to play less and when I do play, I’m gonna have to play ArcanystHai or CrankyHai cause even I refuse to play Spellhai. Vetruvian as much as I love the faction and it’s my main, feels incredibly vulnerable right now. There’s a reason Vet dropped completely off the ladder 3 hrs after the patch, no Vet games above gold. I intend to keep trying with Vet for now cause I ain’t giving up on the Starstriders and the Scioness, even I have to admit it isn’t looking too good right now.

1 Like
#9

And people keep walking around saying “it’s fine, it opens up windows, you just havent found the right answer yet.” I spent an hour looking at the cards, trying to make things work. Only to find that it was too costly to pull things like falcius +time maelstorm, ankh + bbs, tracer+ bbs and shit like that off. Or even decay + tracer. And the other cheaper options doesnt fix the range problem, eg. paragon, lightbender, shroud (it’s so shitty that I really dont think it’s worth it in vet), grove keeper (too specific and still, range).

And if it is related to future expansions Im curious, why not nerf it later? Why now? They jsut wiped vetruvian from the game, AGAIN. And I havent even mentioned (but I dont think I need to) that the nerf was so badly done and completely unnecessary, Im just sitting here thinking “Wtf.”

3 Likes
#10

Shroud is actually a very imbalanced card on its own. See it this way:

  1. it’s a neutral minion, accessible to all.
  2. it is a 2 drop with a vanilla 2-2 body. it trades into other 2 drops or 3 drops with the help of your general.
  3. It soaks up part of the damage from trading and soaks up 2 damage from the opponent general in the worst case scenario.
  4. it has a free dispel attached to a 2-2 body.
  5. it kills anything that requires prior set-up, costs more and interesting for just 2 mana (eg. abyssal juggernaut, aymara). It doesnt require counter play or thinking to counter em, jsut 2 mana and the effects taht your opponent paid for with their whole turn just went down the drain.

So yeah, even experienced players like grincherz thinks the card harms the game in the long run and such an ability shouldnt be available in the neutral minions (even lightbenders imo).

3 Likes
#11

brb making alts so i can like this more

1 Like
#12

i just had a game vs reva as zirix where i would have won much earlier if shroud would still have a 2/2 body

i still won, but it was close as fuck, its even worse with inner oasis now a 2/5 is much stronger than a 1/4

i think the devs just fucked up, same like blizzard did with kharazan, happens

#13

CPG has been consistently fking up. This forum is like filled with rational and resonable suggestions. But 9 times out of 10, they refuse to acknowledge and jsut go their way. And now yep, fked up, again. Vetruvian has the most ups and downs tbh. And the most problematic faction is always untouched -Songhai. I jsut, dont know anymore. And hearthstone? thank god i got myself to quit that RNG shit fest of a game.

3 Likes
#14

When the game gradually receives more and more powerful “remove or die”, cards having no reliable ways to save your own life is just bad design. I, for one, feel like this game NEEDS more Neutral dispels/removal because since the games are already decided by draw RNG it’s getting worse and worse each patch.
As a Vet main I’m just gonna uninstall for another 3-6 months because CPG clearly hates this faction with a burning passion.

#15

Walls do nothing against out of hand damage (but is good against baconator). You can have a billion walls and you can still easily die to spell damage since Vanar dont have any good source of healing. Songhai burst output is too strong, they dont give a f*** to board, they’ll just burn you down before you expect.

1 Like
#16

They did fine. Dispel is one of the mos defining abilities in the game. It is beyond ridiculously powerful. It shouldn’t be attached to a cheap and stat decent body. Even Lightbender is iffy, but I think that scrapes by because it has the chance to dispel your own side too.

2 Likes
#17

That would’ve been a valid point if half the card pool didn’t possess powerful effects. Things can snowball out of control easily and with these nerfs the game is turning into crap day by day.

#18

the reason why dispell is so good is because there are too much" dispell of die" threats in the game!!!
so do you really think nerf dispell overall is a good idea when the threats are still there ?

shroud is still played, its just much weaker now and the factions which dont use it got buffed indirectly (songhai, vanar)

they fucked up.

1 Like
#19

I mean, things SHOULD have strong effects. Otherwise you might as well just run aggro. Good dispel cards means that theres less benefit to play control. Why should I play a big minion if half its value can be lost easily?[quote=“pizzahutofficial, post:18, topic:5225, full:true”]
the reason why dispell is so good is because there are too much" dispell of die" threats in the game!!!
so do you really think nerf dispell overall is a good idea when the threats are still there ?

shroud is still played, its just much weaker now and the factions which dont use it got buffed indirectly (songhai, vanar)

they fucked up.
[/quote]

If there wasn’t ‘dispel or die’ creatures, everyone would just smorc each other. It is literally the entire point of a big minion to be a big threat. Otherwise, why not just swarm the board?

#21

I just think better removals need to be introduced to take over the need for “dispels”. But the siphon was still COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY. As a vet main, I think I might have to build other decks with the remains from my Kron and possibly Zenrui xD