I feel like the change would be minor enough to not cause issues if it were implemented. If AW did change it, it would probably either appear in FiF or in the alternate Necromancer expansion.

However, I don't think AW cares enough to make the change.

When I was originally planning this build, I had galador, and Tarok out, but felt they didn't fit with the theme I was going for, plus they are kind of expensive. I still saw the issue that i was going to have trouble with fliers which is why i added the eagles wings, and maim wings.

My other issue with the life tree is it effects all living things, even my opponents.

I just took out the Storm drake hide, regrowth and one blood spline wall  to add a Giant Wolf Spider to help with Ranged attacks.

Let me knowhow the Spider performs. That's a creature I haven't experimented yet in a Druid book.

The issue of Psychic Immunity is currently a big deal for the Psylok. Psychic Immunity is simply a LOT more relevant in the current meta than other types of immunities. It is both common and protects against a lot of spells, conditions, and attacks. The next closest would be Poison Immunity, but I can't think of any creatures that deal poison damage with their attack. Some have effects that deal it though and there are several spells and conditions affected by it. Besides those two though, immunities don't generally have a huge impact.

Eventually though, I expect Acid, Flame, Hydro, Light, Lightning, and Wind immunity to be just as common and powerful as Psychic Immunity which will in turn make all of them have a smaller impact on the game in general.

Psylok will still have problems with it's attack being a Full Action though. The attack itself is very powerful, being able to slice through defenses, armor, and resillient like a hot knife through butter. It's just hard to pull off with a small flying pest that can't both move and attack in the same round. The Mind School has lots of spells and abilities to put and keep things in position though, so this could be compensated for.

However, it will still be a level 2 creature. Which in my experience, level 2 creatures are usually only popular with swarms or mages who have a "Pet" type ability. The Forcemaster lacks any "Pet" ability, so unless a Swarm becomes viable for her, I don't see any level 2 creatures being extremely popular.

All told, it is indeed a hard fix but I don't believe it is impossible. To illustrate my point, consider the following. If it was an Animal creature in the Nature School with the exact same stats except it dealt Lightning damage, I think Beastmasters would love it. They could get out a swarm fairly easily, use tanglevines/stranglevines to root enemies in place, and then fly in to chew through their worthless defenses. Add a Marked for Death to increase the damage by 50%. This comparison shows that it's the current state of the card pool that limits Psylok and not the creature itself that is "dead weight."

In your example you've fundamentally changed how it interacts with other cards. And even then we don't know for certain if that would become a staple of Beastmasters. That hardly shows anything.

The simplest "fix" (in addition to making Psychic Immunity matter less) would be to make the Ranged attack 0-1 instead of 0-0.

If Psylok were a quick action to cast and had it's attack upgraded to being a quick action, I could see it being usable. In it's current form, it's horrendously bad.

That would have so much tactical potential! If only...

@Aylin,

What browser are you using?

It looks the same to me on two separate computers. Chrome and Firefox in Windows and Firefox in Linux. No change; everything is just bunched together.

Apparently your computer is screwed up or something, but the forum layout, the spellbook maker provides, lays out everything all nice and neat.  .

Not sure what's going on then. It's only your stuff that's looking weird to me.

Attack Spells

Acid Ball - 3
Surging Wave - 3

Conjuration

Bloodspine Wall - 4
Corrosive Orchid - 1
Vine Tree - 1
Mana Flower - 2
Stranglevine - 1
Tanglevine - 2
Etherian Life Tree - 1

Creature -

Kralathor, the devourer - 1
Thornlasher - 3
Raptor Vine - 4
Galador, Protector of Straywood - 1
Tarok, the Skyhunter - 1

Enchantment -

Barkskin - 1
Harmonize - 2
Cheetah Speed - 2
Maim Wings - 2
Rhino Hide - 2
Bear Strength - 2
Regrowth - 2

Equipment -

Druid's Leaf Ring - 1
Moonglow Amulet - 1
Mage Wand - 1
Enchanter's Ring - 1
Wand of Healing - 1
Dragonscale Hauberk - 1
Elemental Cloak - 1
Storm Drake Hide - 1
Burst of Thorns - 3

Incantations -

Dispel - 3
Dissolve - 3
Renewing Rain - 2
Teleport - 2
Seeking Dispel - 2
Rouse the Beast - 3

Looks good; it's got all the basics. I think you might be able to get away with 1 copy of Regrowth if you wanted to make space for something else. I look forward to seeing how your book changes as you use it more.

Don't drop Tataree, Samara Tree, Snappers, and Mohktari's branch, and the seedling pods.  Give them a try, see if they fit your playstyle. 

Mohktari's Branch is decent. The others...not so much.

Tataree and Samara work very well together (pods only take 2 turns to pop with Tataree),

If you use Tataree on your Seedling Pods, every round you'll spend 2 mana to get 3 mana back in two rounds.

Compare that with Tataree + Vine Tree; every round you just get 2 mana.

One is clearly superior, and it isn't the Samara Tree.

make sure you use the vine markers to put your pods where you need them, and even if someone attacks them they need at least a 5dice attack to have an expected chance to kill them.  If they're wasting a 5 dice attack on the pods, you should welcome it.

If they have a creature that can take out your Seedling Pods in 1 hit, you're losing out in this exchange. They're spending an action and 0 mana every time they attack one (and 16 mana for a Vampire is probably the most expensive thing they'd summon for this), while you're spending an action and 2 mana every time (with an 8 mana investment at the start). They break even AT MOST after destroying 4 pods (and there are cheaper ways of getting a 5-die attack), and that's only talking about mana + actions. You're also losing your Vine Markers during this as well, which is very painful. I don't know why you'd be happy about that, especially since they have the OPTION to hit your Pods...such as hitting every Pod you place on the field between your mage and their creature.

But in the best case scenario for you, you not losing pods prematurely, you're using your Vine Markers to cast Seedling Pods that will mature two rounds from now IF you're using Tataree (otherwise three). When they do mature, you can't use your Vine Markers to have them cast anything outside of their own zone, meaning your opponent will always know where you can summon a new creature or conjuration. There is no way for you to react with your spawnpoint like you could if you had Vine Tree. On top of that, you're eating your Vine Markers early (before you've built up, which reduces the tactical options your Druid has), and using more spellpoints than a Druid running Vine Tree would.

Now, what's the benefit you get from all of these downsides? Your spawnpoint could can now additionally cast other Trees, Mana Flower, Wall of Thorns, and Togorah. Out of the entire list Wall of Thorns is the only one that sucks to lose. But is it worth having all of those downsides? Hell no.

Summary:

Pro Samara Tree:
Slightly increased list of spells that can be cast.
Costs 1 less mana initially.

Con Samara Tree:
3 turn delay (2 with Tataree) in order to cast anything worthwhile.
Can't make extra Vine tokens.
Significantly reduced tactical options (notably, hindering your ability to respond to new threats or attack weak spots in your opponent's position).
Pods are relatively easy to destroy.
Requires at least three more spellpoints than Vine Tree to run.

The costs aren't worth the benefits here. The only time I would ever run Samara over Vine is if I wanted to deliberately handicap myself for a particular match.

Also, remember that you can QC Tataree, and he has an infinite 3+ defense.  Sure, someone can kill him, but they're either losing mana on it by the time they get to him with an unavoidable attack or fighting a huge uphill probability battle.

When I was running Tataree I found that it often died to either AoE attacks or Idol of Pestilence without my opponent devoting any resources to it at all. The remainder of the time it died to a creature that was enchanted with Falcon Precision (people have this in their books anyway because of the Forcemaster) as part of a Sweeping Attack, which wouldn't have otherwise hit anything (rather, they would have used the standard single-target attack instead, such as on Adramelech).

If opponents actually had to put thought into killing Tataree I'd run it. But in my experience it's just wasted mana unless I can keep it alive for 7+ rounds.

Snappers are extremely undercosted; Place them well and you'll see returns, especially if you rouse them (2mana for 5 dice is strong) and put them next to lashers.

They're undercosted, but they cannot move. I cannot stress that enough. For only a little bit more mana you could instead cast the much better Raptor Vine, which not only is Vampiric, but it can also move.

Moktari's branch does what the healing wand does, except in 1 action.  There's nothing wrong with it, you just pay 2 more mana for the convenience and the fact that you're not even paying for the heal, which is automatically 1 health instead of the expected 2. 

No one uses Wand of Healing for the 2-die heal unless they've got nothing else to do. They use it remove condition markers. The important considerations are the following:
Do I care more about a ring slot or a hand slot?
Do I care more about removing conditions from my tree or from myself and my non-plant creatures?

Generally I find the discount rings are better than anything I could put in a hand. If you don't find them valuable, then switch. But Wand of Healing >>>>> Vinewhip Staff, which is why I made the recommendation that I did.

Togorah is a situational creature, like many large creatures.  If you don't want to include him, that makes perfect sense.  That doesn't mean he, or any other situational card, is bad. 

Have fun.

Togorah is underpowered and expensive. Not the worst thing to include in a book, but there are better options.

Quote from: Adkin1233 on April 21, 2014, 12:58:45 PM

I agree. If your opponent wastes the mana and actions getting rid of my forge than it's worth the quick action I used to cast it.

While this is true, I also feel it is beside the point. Given the option to spend some mana for a Force Hammer or a couple of Surging Waves to kill the thing on the following turn, or to leave it be and give the opposing mage a dozen or so mana plus a similar number of actions, I'd choose to kill it. You probably lose less mana and certainly prevent your opponent from having many more equipment spells cast in the long run by doing so.

Yeah, killing the Battleforge is probably "least bad" to you (and you still lose a bit in that exchange).

Of course, if people start killing Battleforges regularly I'll just have to start having two... >:-D

Here are the changes

As before, it's nearly impossible to read like that. If you could reformat it I'll take a look.

I am sorry. Won't happen again. 

Quote from: Lord0fWinter on April 22, 2014, 06:35:08 PM

Quote from: gw on April 22, 2014, 06:28:33 PM

Yea, Aylin knows what he is talking about. Listen to him. 

She

XD Awesome



Anyway, I forgot something! Armour! You'll want armour for your chestpiece and cloak... Personally I recommend the Dragonscale Hauberk since that why you'll be resistant to the damage type your creatures are vulnerable to. Elemental Cloak is always a good idea (some players bring 2, but I think 1 is a minimum) since it protects you against the two most comment elemental types: fire and lightning. Storm Drake Hide is also a good choice, though lots of Lightning damage isn't as common anymore. Bearskin is an ok choice since it's cheap for Druids, though it's just Armour +2 right now.

For a while my Druid was using Dragonscale Hauberk and Bearskin with two copies of Elemental Cloak.