Lets talk about the Orbweaver class

[Mana_Surgeon]

Some more thoughts on proposed solutions:

@igniteice

1. Life and Death should have its damage reduced to (Magic/2)+1 instead of Magic+1. There’s no reason it needs to deal 1 true damage to two targets per Magic and heal for the same amount. That’s ridiculous.
2. If it’s going to keep Bless, it should lose Enchanting. And I’m not sure why it has Lightning, that doesn’t fit its theme at all, it’s just an annoying way for it to ping off Barrier on the first two enemy troops.

Such a harsh damage reduction would threaten to nerf L&D into irrelevance - there’s no way to boost the magic of elves, and the weapon itself has no damage-boosting effects. Other than possibly doing something with the enchant (which I discussed here), I don’t think we need to change the weapon for simply being good and requiring a different strategy to approach. The game would be very boring if we weren’t allowed to have different kinds of good weapons/troops/classes.

@igniteice

• Orbweaver’s chance to summon should be more like 10-15%. Look at all the other summons in the game… Backup is 35% chance when an Ally dies. Hellsteed (Diabolist) and Wind’s Child of Sky are 25% chance when Ally casts a spell. Knowledge’s Golem Protector is 20% chance when you take damage (and Ancient Golem doesn’t loop at all!) Shadow’s Call is 20% chance when an enemy dies. Spawn of Hell is 50% chance when an enemy dies. Orbweaver is 35% chance when you take damage, and the troop it summons can summon more troops.

Since it’s a third trait, it has to be better than Golem Protector at a minimum. As I said above, I don’t think activation rates are really the solution, especially since the RNG in this game is unashamedly streaky.

That being said, I have far more of a problem with the Backup talent being 35% than I do with the Orbweaver Familiar trait. Backup randomly rewards my opponent for losing and punishes me for winning. I have control over how and when I damage my opponents, so activation of Familiar is under my control in most circumstances. (Even though I’m still being punished for doing damage, I can manage the risk, unlike with Backup.)