New bramble nerf and soldiers

[bobolynx]

The one thing I'm sad about with the new bramble nerf is that its supporting already one of the most used units in the game, aka the soldier. Especially with bombshells, but a basic need for almost every game are soldiers, especially as they are one of the more efficient units in the game. I guess you can't have everything, but yeah... Maybe we should make them have 1hp instead! XD
You could have something like if you overheal the end of a strain it heals the rest of that ones parents. Idk something like that. Then there'd be some weird interactions like having frontline medics. Yeah.
Oh most of this has already been said...

[ElPared]

I'm concerned about that too. To be perfectly honest I thought the Bramble was fine at 3HP thorns and nothing else. I would have preferred it if they just took away the ability to attack with thorns and kept the ability to retreat them.

[greatbero]

Hm.
This sounds to me like saying chess has too many pawns.

The game is structured that way - in most situations universal unit is the universal answer.

So, of course, they can change it, but the art of adding new content (and Bramble is additional content) is that you need to add it in a way to make a game fresh and exciting again but also not disrupt the established main elements.

[.Memories.]

I agree with greatbero here. The soldier is an average unit, and most situations are average..

[ElPared]

a Bramble on the field is a decidedly non-average situation, therefore average units should not be the answer to it. You should have to change your strategy to deal with it, not just do more of what you would have done anyway.

[bobolynx]

Honestly changing the brambles is a boost for scallywags, because they're big on having lots of soldiers. But the point is that soldiers are already one of the best units, why make them even more central? Also, the medic thing would make for interesting tactics, especially as you never see medics at the front of attacks

[TheGreatAnt]

(03-26-2013 01:33 AM)bobolynx Wrote:  Also, the medic thing would make for interesting tactics, especially as you never see medics at the front of attacks

Ehhh. I have moved them up before. Mostly as a throw away unit, to get in the way, or to buff an injured member of my team. Of course it is not often, but when the situation calls for it, I move my medic around.

[ElPared]

I advance my medic as Feedback all the time, but that's just to boost scrambled units.

Honestly Bramble v3 still kinda sucks against Scallywags, which is why I've started playing them more. all you need on most maps is a Bombshell and a sniper to back it up and the thing's pretty much untouchable.

with the new nerf Scallys could do the exact same thing but with soldiers instead of snipers and can take out the splashed thorns with runners. LAME

either way, I hope the update comes soon. I'm seriously tired of fighting Veggienauts teams where I have to try to kill a Bramble by turn 3, failing, and then having it spiral out of control and ultimately just giving up because I have better things to do than play gardener until I lose

[laYahooz]

With the 2hp nerf I expect to see bramble utilize some more sniper turtling and only getting offensive to take out key units (ie: medic). I honestly like bramble being a more defensive turtling unit because its very fun to build an army of snipers behind vines.

I think people who are good at bramble already, like my 2v2 partner Cervocirsh, will still be able win consistently. Bramble will still be used on my 2v2 teams too, we have been avid bramble fans since it came out

[CombatEX]

The main thing I would take away from here is the fact that before the change, the perceived balance of the Veggienauts versus other teams is as follows:

Veggienauts > Adorables
Veggienauts > Feedback
Veggienauts < Scallywags

This is a rough generalization and obviously there is some dispute, but this seems to be the general consensus. Now, the change is a straight nerf to Veggienauts. It should be clear that this ignores a significant part of Veggienaut balance. That is, the Veggienaut vs Scallywag matchup. I hope that a slight buff can be made that helps Veggienauts against Scallywags without being as much of a buff against Adorables and Feedback. I don't remember who made this suggestion initially, but it fulfilled this requirement - regenerating thorns. For those of you who haven't seen this suggestion yet, here's the basic idea:

Each turn any damaged thorns are reset to full health (buffed thorns will remain at 3, but any thorn with 1 health returns to 2 assuming thorn base hp is 2). This helps against Scallywags because it makes splash damage less detrimental while it doesn't have much of an impact in the other matchups. Is that enough of a matchup specific buff? Maybe not, but it's a start.