Valiant Force Forum

Kiera

LAST BUT NOT LEAST!! MiloD presents to you Kiera!!

Rune Magus will become more and more important as new metas arrive to capture flags. Is Zedd enough? Is Ronan sufficient? Why not bring all 3 of them in?? Muahahaha

Rune Magus Kiera
Old Obelisks of Gaia (CD:6)
Damage all 115% based on MAG
Knockback all 1 tile
Spawns wall with HP 210-300% Based on MAG

Old Hieroglyphs of Power
When allies in aura attack, 30% chance to trigger
Knockback + 75% damage based on ATK

New Obelisks of Gaia (CD:6)
Damage all 130% based on MAG
Knockback all 2 tiles
Spawns wall with HP 210-300% Based on MAG

New Hieroglyphs of Power
When allies in aura gets hit, 35% chance to trigger
Haste (Reduce 1 CD from Skill CD)

Welcome back to the fold Elementalist Kiera. We missed you. We are essentially giving her a huge damage boost by reducing her CD and increasing her burning ground effect. At the same time, we are giving her more survivability. She will still have the highest MAG ratio, along with a good dose of defence.

Elementalist Kiera
Old Sacred Blaze (CD:7)
Deals 135-165% damage based on MAG (3x3 radius)
Burns ground for 35% of MAG for 2 turns (Units that got hit)


Old Eye of the Storm
Buff 25% MAG based on MAG to allies in aura

New Sacred Blaze (CD:6)
Deals 130-160% damage based on MAG (3x3 radius)
Burns ground for 50% of MAG for 2 turns (Units that got hit)
33% Chance to Stun enemies for 1 turn

New Eye of the Storm
Buff 20% MAG based on MAG to allies in aura
Buff 10% DEF based on MAG to allies in aura

These are the concepts that we have for the Valiants thus far! We will continue to receive all your feedback, improve and tweak the figures or change their skills as we go along to prepare for their complete revamp.


Thank you all for your time, keep the questions coming and MiloD will respond as best as I can!

I think another way to buff kiera is to make her a counter to faye.
As per her skill name, 'sacred blaze'
Why not add another effect on this? which is 'remove all bonus on enemies'.
I think this will bring her back to number one mage on valiant force as no other mages have this type of skill.

remove buff skill 3x3 + damage it's not just make her strong but also OP(Overpower) not to mention if she's combine with revamped version darrion HD, & also MiloD mention to me when we discussed about revamped valiant, that dev try their best to make valiant strong & relevant without making them too OP 

Kiera

LAST BUT NOT LEAST!! MiloD presents to you Kiera!!

Rune Magus will become more and more important as new metas arrive to capture flags. Is Zedd enough? Is Ronan sufficient? Why not bring all 3 of them in?? Muahahaha

Rune Magus Kiera
Old Obelisks of Gaia (CD:6)
Damage all 115% based on MAG
Knockback all 1 tile
Spawns wall with HP 210-300% Based on MAG

Old Hieroglyphs of Power
When allies in aura attack, 30% chance to trigger
Knockback + 75% damage based on ATK

New Obelisks of Gaia (CD:6)
Damage all 130% based on MAG
Knockback all 2 tiles
Spawns wall with HP 210-300% Based on MAG

New Hieroglyphs of Power
When allies in aura gets hit, 35% chance to trigger
Haste (Reduce 1 CD from Skill CD)

Welcome back to the fold Elementalist Kiera. We missed you. We are essentially giving her a huge damage boost by reducing her CD and increasing her burning ground effect. At the same time, we are giving her more survivability. She will still have the highest MAG ratio, along with a good dose of defence.

Elementalist Kiera
Old Sacred Blaze (CD:7)
Deals 135-165% damage based on MAG (3x3 radius)
Burns ground for 35% of MAG for 2 turns (Units that got hit)


Old Eye of the Storm
Buff 25% MAG based on MAG to allies in aura

New Sacred Blaze (CD:6)
Deals 130-160% damage based on MAG (3x3 radius)
Burns ground for 50% of MAG for 2 turns (Units that got hit)
33% Chance to Stun enemies for 1 turn

New Eye of the Storm
Buff 20% MAG based on MAG to allies in aura
Buff 10% DEF based on MAG to allies in aura

These are the concepts that we have for the Valiants thus far! We will continue to receive all your feedback, improve and tweak the figures or change their skills as we go along to prepare for their complete revamp.


Thank you all for your time, keep the questions coming and MiloD will respond as best as I can!

I think another way to buff kiera is to make her a counter to faye.
As per her skill name, 'sacred blaze'
Why not add another effect on this? which is 'remove all bonus on enemies'.
I think this will bring her back to number one mage on valiant force as no other mages have this type of skill.

remove buff skill 3x3 + damage it's not just make her strong but also OP(Overpower) not to mention if she's combine with revamped version darrion HD, & also MiloD mention to me when we discussed about revamped valiant, that dev try their best to make valiant strong & relevant without making them too OP 

OP? Not really her skill not that strong, my Kiera Mag in arena around 13k still can't 1 hit ranger team 
and with new aura that reduce MAG buff you do you think she is OP?
Her skill not MAP like Talissa so even you + remove buff her skill is a bit stronger but still seem not as strong as Ronan not to mention Talissa who CD 4

Right now my main damage dealer is Talissa Warlock
I try to change back to Kiera Element many time but she still hard to use

1. Too long CD
New revamp made her 6 CD same as Ronan well better than nothing

2. Nuff her damage from 165% to 160% and her aura from +25%mag to 20% mag (well +def10%)
OMG last time Kiera wasn't weak enough we need her damage to be weaker (LOL)

3. Burn ground up to 50% of MAG
Well old one is 35% but Kiera has higher Mag so I don't think damage will much different, and damage from burn ground is to weak anyway 
(old one not even 1k to ranger with 13k MAG)

4. 33% stun...umm what Talissa pet % chance again of what 100% HELLO!!!

IMO since developer still stick her skill to 3x3 not entire map 
even made her skill to de-buff still instead of stun would made her stronger yes but not that OP since damage is weaker 

And right now have any developer see team in arena?
It world of Tank now

If decrease damage is good option for her then
my final verdict for Kiera Element is Expedition job

Right now my main damage dealer is Talissa Warlock
I try to change back to Kiera Element many time but she still hard to use

1. Too long CD
New revamp made her 6 CD same as Ronan well better than nothing

2. Nuff her damage from 165% to 160% and her aura from +25%mag to 20% mag (well +def10%)
OMG last time Kiera wasn't weak enough we need her damage to be weaker (LOL)

3. Burn ground up to 50% of MAG
Well old one is 35% but Kiera has higher Mag so I don't think damage will much different, and damage from burn ground is to weak anyway
(old one not even 1k to ranger with 13k MAG)

4. 33% stun...umm what Talissa pet % chance again of what 100% HELLO!!!

IMO since developer still stick her skill to 3x3 not entire map
even made her skill to de-buff still instead of stun would made her stronger yes but not that OP since damage is weaker

And right now have any developer see team in arena?
It world of Tank now

If decrease damage is good option for her then
my final verdict for Kiera Element is Expedition job

I usually enjoy reading the discussions. But it pains me as an administrator to read a comment like yours.

Reducing her cooldown while decreasing her damage is in no way wrong. How can you expect a 6 turn CD skill to deal the same/more damage than a 7 turn CD? For every CD reduced, the entire essence of the hero changes. You have to understand what you're actually saying. Reducing her CD to 6 while barely reducing her damage actually INCREASES her damage. How's that not an improvement?

The developers will definitely continue to work on the Valiants, but I hope you actually go through a fuller thought process before you simply leave comments such as these. 
If you say that "compared to X, Kiera is still weak and could be better. This is what I propose", I will pay full attention to you. But if you're gonna leave a comment which just dismisses the efforts of what my hardworking developers have been going through, then I will dismiss your comment as well and not take into account your thoughts when I report back to the developers.

P.S. I don't know what you're smoking, but if your 13k Kiera Elementalist can't deal more than 1k damage from your burning ground to Rangers, she's probably not 13k at all.

my Kiera (if trade rune and equipment from Talissa to her right now)
13k was maybe last month when I try to use her again
I don't have same player to save image to you but if I remember correctly that guy was "Cast" or "Emperor" which I fight in arena
At that time my 13k MAG Kiera damage round 4/5 to his ranger team then when I pray their ranger will die from burn ground I saw damage not even 1k pop up...
I admit I might be mistake, but damage skill to low

Now for your point
1. 6CD with same damage or higher?
Yes, at least she need to made little more damage than Talissa Warlock
Why do I have to compare?
Kiera is Mystic class same as Talissa, but Kiera is weaker even with revamp
If she can't beat Talissa in term of damage why anyone would want to use her?

2. 6CD but you decrease aure to 20% and skill to 160%
it not buff damage, in arena Kiera most time she only cast 1-2 time how that count as increase and in late arena round most time your opponent not stay together Ronan is easier to cast skill, Talissa damage whole map, while Kiera cast 3x3 some time you even only damage 1 character

Sorry to comment in such angry tone, but Kiera is my first Valiant that I got (even right now I got all other Valiant more than one, but only one Kiera)
So I attach to her most, It pain to me to change her to Talissa, then when I see you guy will made Kiera stronger again
I really have high hope for her (If you look to my previous I want developer to buff her many time)
Then after I see...that

not only her skill is harder to use if you compare to Ronan and Talissa
(3x3 not help much when you face tanker team which front line move and healer still stay you can't damage them both)
her total damage is lower
How can she be useful then?

MiloD! Do you think it'll be too OP if we are able to select empty tiles as well to cast elementalist Kiera's skill (instead of having to select an enemy unit to cast on)? This will indirectly increase her potential damage output since we would then be able to damage units that are 1 row away from each other as right now the skill requires units to be adjacent to each other to maximize the 3x3 area damage.

Thanks!

MiloD! Do you think it'll be too OP if we are able to select empty tiles as well to cast elementalist Kiera's skill (instead of having to select an enemy unit to cast on)? This will indirectly increase her potential damage output since we would then be able to damage units that are 1 row away from each other as right now the skill requires units to be adjacent to each other to maximize the 3x3 area damage.

Thanks!

+1 Very good Idea, yes Kiera lack of precision, many secenario, that we're facing while using Kiera, forcing us to use the skill in dilematic situation. & usually not in the Kiera player favor

Hi YayuSheng, freydom and Pat437,

I am honored to have received your heartfelt opinions and I thank you for taking your time to read my long posts. I am sorry for replying so late but it has taken quite a lot of time from me to write those posts and I have had little free time since yesterday. However, I will still do my best to respond to your enquiries and further discussions. However, for those questions that I find not meaningful to answer either because I feel that my original posts already contain the exact answers or I feel that nothing positive will come from these questions or there has been a much better answer from someone else, I will be quoting from those. So let's get down to it.
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First, for YayuSheng, in response to your old posts about Shizu Magebane. After reading a few of your posts, I conclude that the reason why we hold very different views is because of our differing view on the right point of balance as reference. I say this because you have, on multiple occasions compared Shizu Magebane against the revamped Freya Dragoon. While I totally agree with your conclusions when you perform such comparisons (mostly that the revamped MB Shizu is miles weaker than the revamped Freya Dragoon), notice that I personally gave the Freya Dragoon revamp a 6.5/10 because I find her to be way overpowered. So that's our main point of contention it seems. 

With regards to how MB Shizu can deal with mage threats before turn 6,while I do recognize that a 6-turn CD skill is not effective at stopping all forms of offensive magic attacks, I stand firm in my judgement that the new Magebane Shizu, in a well-designed squad, will be very useful in battling against mage-heavy comps. She may need an additional source of silence or stun, probably one that is a 4-turn CD single-target, and/or maybe another source of aura-powered silence to complete the package. You then have another 2 slots in the squad to cover other weaknesses (maybe physical defense?) and provide additional flexibility/damage. 
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Second, for freydom, regarding the "use valianite" response. Now, nowhere in my writings have do I talk about new players catching up with older ones. I merely talked about the impact of bad-RNG hero rolls. Consider the situation where two players start playing VF at the same time and they have made the same number of hero gem-rolls within a certain period of play. Player A, with his godsent RNG, got all the strong meta heroes for the current arena and even a few of the new event heroes to become a strong contender in current event maps. Player B on the other hand, rolled significantly worse, with no meta heroes and lots of underpowered ones instead. Sure, at this point, using valianite to obtain one or two meta/event heroes is an option that Player B can take, depending on how much valianite he got. However, is this really a "solution" to the problem? It seems like yes, but the advantage that Player A has over Player B will now manifest as superior faiths of the heroes as well as equipments since Player A, unlike Player B, does not need to spend his valianite on obtaining enough "effective" heroes, Player A can now spend that same valianite on other things to further increase the gap between himself and Player B. 
So yes, I totally agree with you when you say that things are always changing, gameplay is a long journey that requires time to be invested and options are always available, but the main crux of this is that the game needs to make the players feel like the options given to them can eventually change their relative power-level in the game. If all the options available can at most keep them fixed at a point of perpetual disadvantage, then players who never had good enough luck at rolls would simply lose interest. Your points work very well in terms of motivating a single player, but from a top-down systemic viewpoint, when you consider the entire player economy, it can be very player-defeating.
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Third, for freydom as well, regarding the SDD and imbalance. You mentioned the new Matilda as a possible candidate for SDD, and I do agree that it is something that I have overlooked. However, it does not matter to my main points of specialized versus blanket imbalance. However, on your response as to why Kahuna is not used in a "team with sufficient consistent healing which can trigger any non specific unit to attack dealing heavy single damage with the right equips", I think that you provided the wrong reasons. You said,

obviously no one tries such a setup because its non mainstream and extremely costly and impractical

Let's go over those one-by-one. Non-mainstream? Well the reason it is not used cannot be that it is non-mainstream since the term "mainstream" means commonly-used. It's circular reasoning, just like saying that the moon is shaped like a sphere is because the moon is spherical. That's not a real argument. Next, extremely costly. Well, many meta squads such as full trigger-archer squads are also extremely costly, but their effectiveness makes up for that cost, which is what makes them good. So cost can't be the sole reason such a team is bad. Lastly, impractical. Well, what does "impractical" mean? I guess that it would be something along the lines of inconsistency, ineffectiveness and inflexibility? If so, combining this with the cost factor, what you mean is that, such a team is bad because it is too inconsistent/ineffective/inflexible for its cost. Then you conclude this as an example of VF having choice and diversity. This is where I find your ideas of choice and diversity to be very wrong. It is not a meaningful choice if it is merely a calculation. A downright bad choice is not a real choice for players in the game. When I talk about diversity, I am talking about the possible ways to make squads that are not obviously weak or inefficient. If you use your definition of choice then even a 1-unit squad with a lone level 1 1-star skeleton also becomes a meaningful choice that creates diversity for the game. This is clearly not the case. There is a video that explains this much better than I do so I'll just link it here. I hope you find this video (as well as the others in the series) helpful. 

P.S. Go to 02:15 for the relevant part or you can just watch through the entire video  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fourth, still for freydom, about blanket utility. To clear up any misconceptions you may have, I shall quote a block from myself: 

newnar:

...more flexible heroes that do not have strong specialties so-called "have a market". They fill the gap where the absolute best hero for the job are unavailable, and where they are weaker than those heroes, they makeup for it by able to be included in more squad archetypes. However, going overboard on flexibility is equally troubling, as heroes that are too much Jack-of-all-trades will generally end up being able to fulfill no role properly, and when these heroes get rolled by players, they are essentially "pack-fillers" that don't really contribute to anything. On the other hand, if a hero becomes a Master-of-all-trades because he/she is extremely flexible yet can still outshine other heroes with less flexibility at the same role, then we get to the aforementioned problem of blanket imbalance, where this hero becomes an auto-include in more than half the squad archetypes in meta and creates too much homogeneity between players. Therefore, we want a good spectrum of heroes, some more specialized, some more flexible, but not overperforming in both nor underperforming in either.

I hope this answers your questions about my view of how the game ought to be. In short, I am not against having jack-of-all-trades heroes, but I am against master-of-all-trades heroes or jack-of-all-trades heroes that are so weak that they have become "pack-fillers". 

With regards to your claim of "This same diverse but F2P costly result you want ironically contradicts with the ideal homogeneous game you want--- results from your massive nerfing of existing useful heroes be it inside or outside arena." I am bewildered by how you believe that if all heroes are properly balanced amongst the diverse way the game can be played, they would be homogeneous. What I would want is simply for all heroes to have appropriate weaknesses for each of their strengths, with as similar of a degree as possible. Rarer heroes like Valiants can be defined as those with slightly less weaknesses for their strengths, but definitely within a threshold that makes them still beatable by exploiting their weaknesses. With each hero having different strengths of different degrees in different areas but equivalent weaknesses to balance these strengths out, I do not see how this must lead to a homogeneity among heroes. Also, if you prefer not to nerf, that's fine as well. My main concern is the relative strength of heroes, not absolute, so if you are against nerfing existing heroes that are deemed overused or overpowered, buffing the least-used or underpowered is an equally effective option. The only concern that I may see coming from this is that certain PvE aspects might become too easy, since using buffs instead of nerfs to balance the scene would no doubt raise the average combat capability of all heroes, but this is a small matter for the devs as they can allow the PvE aspect to scale as they buff the heroes. 
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Fifth, for Pat437, I have found your reply the most difficult to answer as we may have very different frameworks. However I can try to explain myself within your framework. Basically, using your theories, I would essentially be someone who finds many things in VF to be not working as intended. I fully recognize the bait and switch effect and I would personally attribute this effect mainly to undertesting the game before releasing new content. I am not bashing the devs on purpose here but I really feel that if problems already arise by the time new heroes are released, the bait and switch cannot really be avoided. With regards to the negativity to nerfing heroes, I will restate what I stated in point 4, that if nerfs aren't an option, sure, I have no problem with going for buffs instead, given that PvE content is also scaled up accordingly. But note that the bait and switch effect will still exist even if buffs are used in place of nerfs, since those who paid lots of money going for the most OP at the point of release won't be happy when many other viable alternative heroes appear after a patch lands 2 weeks after they have spent that much on some hero they first thought was "special".

Finally, regarding this line..."For one, this is a gacha game, where people could have possibly spent (a lot of) money just to get the heroes they wanted. Why? Because they are OP/fits their deck/useful/versatile/whatever."
I cannot find myself to agree with making people spend money on purpose to get a specifically OP hero, especially if I put myself in the PoV of a dev or a system designer. And with MiloD's latest response to the thread quoted below, I am sure that working towards non-OPness is definitely a direction that the devs share.

MiloDinosaur:

Disclaimers: 
1) Do note that when the Valiants Revamp do get released, it will definitely not please everyone. But that's not our job. Our job is to make them strong yet balanced. Fun and not overpowered. 

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Extra point: regarding Hungshu's posts, yeah I understand that he's quite brash with his words but he does bring up an important point that I have totally overlooked. EleKeira's active skill not only has worse effective O/S ratio as compared to Talilock and the Ronans, but it also faces a deployment problem where there can be cases where it is simply unable to hit every enemy unit, even though it is a supposed 3x3 AoE spell. If this happens, it only makes her O/S ratio even lower and further reduces her flexibility as compared to Talilock and the Ronans, who do not suffer from this problem.I personally faced this same problem in arena early on (my 2nd valiant was Kiera), but I have swapped her out for a Ronan long ago so I completely forgot about this weakness.

MiloD! Do you think it'll be too OP if we are able to select empty tiles as well to cast elementalist Kiera's skill (instead of having to select an enemy unit to cast on)? This will indirectly increase her potential damage output since we would then be able to damage units that are 1 row away from each other as right now the skill requires units to be adjacent to each other to maximize the 3x3 area damage.

Thanks!

+1 Very good Idea, yes Kiera lack of precision, many secenario, that we're facing while using Kiera, forcing us to use the skill in dilematic situation. & usually not in the Kiera player favor

Yes most of the times enemies easily move out of our favor in terms of positioning and we are stuck with choosing between which unit to target, which really puts us in a difficult position if both units are high-importance units (e.g. if both are damage dealers and ideally we would want both dead ASAP). Glad we share the same sentiments!

MiloD! Do you think it'll be too OP if we are able to select empty tiles as well to cast elementalist Kiera's skill (instead of having to select an enemy unit to cast on)? This will indirectly increase her potential damage output since we would then be able to damage units that are 1 row away from each other as right now the skill requires units to be adjacent to each other to maximize the 3x3 area damage.

Thanks!

+1 Very good Idea, yes Kiera lack of precision, many secenario, that we're facing while using Kiera, forcing us to use the skill in dilematic situation. & usually not in the Kiera player favor

Yes most of the times enemies easily move out of our favor in terms of positioning and we are stuck with choosing between which unit to target, which really puts us in a difficult position if both units are high-importance units (e.g. if both are damage dealers and ideally we would want both dead ASAP). Glad we share the same sentiments!

Hmmm instead of allowing EleKiera's active to be cast on an empty tile and creating a special exception for a somewhat currently established "rule" of the game, would it would be too OP to make EleKiera's nuke to hit globally like Talilock's active instead?