Nerf to unplayability all units with Destroy Target
This is a completely serious post. Destroy puts too much pressure on the meta to be viable. Entropic minions (minions unable to move backward) get destroyed by Destroy without recourse, and Destroy-based armies overwhelmingly lead to long and defensive games. I don't find Destroy-based games fun, but Destroy is way too meta warping for it to not at least be slotted in as a counter.
For example, Ranger+++ would be fairly costed at 23.
Charm, Necromancy, Soulkeep, and Tree abilities should also be considered to be Destroy for the purposes of this overbearing but necessary nerf. Any ability that allows you to get rid of a unit without moving should be treated as a Destroy. Void should also be treated as a Destroy as most people see it as one anyway.
Smaller increases in price should be given to "slow destroy" abilities, which are Poison, Lightning, and Meteor.
Fairly costed Ranger. The upgrade from + to ++ is a cost jump of +7, which would require the unit to be split.
Edit: here are some destroyless unit changes:
Destroyless Unit changes (in general, no movesets):
Salamander/FireElemental - Meteor could work as a fiery non-destroy ability
Pyromancer/FireMage - Destroy Target could be replaced with a 7 turn "Fire" status that temporarily nulls and disables. This can apply to Salamander and FE as well. Be aware of Alchemist if you do this.
Archer/Ranger - This is probably the healthiest unit to keep destroy on (Ranger if it loses ortho-destroy), but if so it could be limited to twice a game or have a 10 turn cooldown. If not, make it a ranged thundermage because idk what else gives a good "bow and arrow" flavor. If nothing else, make it a ranged Poison.
Dryad - Honestly make saplings better morale storage and give it a move or attack ability, and remove the ability to transform. Dryad is a weak unit as is surprisingly.
Soulkeeper - Change soulkeep into [Pay 1]: (Unblockable) Swap places with enemy and transform them into ally Ghost.
Fireball - Change destroy target into attack only
Lilith/SoulFlare - I'm not sure how to change this, perhaps charm lasts until the unit attacks and then gets attacked (the attack is blocked in that case)?
Necromancer - Allow Necromancer to instead use death locations to create BonePiles. Oh and raise the pay for Lich and Necromancer's ability each by 1 or 2.
VoidMage - Make this lose Range 3 void, and have Void instead last 10 turns or until a enemy champion dies.
I don't know. I'm new but I find these units fun to play with and against. I think they are weak to minions that can move backwards and decent champion scope, but all of you must know this already. I haven't found too much trouble playing against any of these units but I tend to value champions with a lot of scope. Admittedly, however, a lot of my poor samurai have been blasted off the board by annoying rangers at times... But I have still won some of those games.
Obviously, the ability to capture without moving a piece is very strong but I like that these units have a short scope from which to operate. Most of these units have only 2 range at most on their "destroy" abilities, other than VoidMage if I am not mistaken, which IMO is a pretty nice place to be. Trading a Rook for a Ranger++ for instance, is a good trade for the Rook in the early and middlegame, but in the endgame a rook will completely dominate the Ranger++ meaning that the Ranger++ loses a lot of its effectiveness as pieces get traded off.
There's also the case of the AntiMage which nullifies these pieces entirely, right? Maybe I am not seeing something but I don't feel that pieces with destroy abilities are inherently oppressive. Annoying, sure, but not oppressive.
I don't see how ranger leads to defensive games, killing a unit without swapping places with it is not that important on your side of the field as you can very easily have squares defended by multiple units, ranger is far more useful to attack enemy lines and ignore enemy defenses imo. I used it in my original lineup to clear lines for rooks, and in my current lineup mostly as anti rps to pick off a couple specific targets before trading it off. I haven't seen anyone just drop a ranger as defense, there should be many more pieces that perform far better as defense.
That said, I do see why it could be annoying to play against. My old pawn/rook army died to fire elemental enough times for me to dislike the piece and ranger isnt all that different. But I don't believe it is in any way sensical to arbitrarily remove destroy from the meta because the game has already evolved in this way: destroy does in fact have so many counters that basing an entire army around it is likely unviable in competitive play, while destroy also is one of the few things potentially keeping lots of low cost minion spam armies in check. If you're running expensive minions, there's nothing that can trade for 2 axemen+0 that keep marching up the board. Even if you do have cheap minions that can trade for this they could easily not be on the correct side of the board to deal with this. Destroy is very rps based, but the solution to rps isnt to remove the scissors. Armies have to be able to counter every possible army they might encounter (not even bringing up inferno or hell mode here, which destroy also keeps in check). If destroy is no longer a possible army people might encounter the effects on the meta could be wildly unpredictable.
TLDR its too late to just nerf destroy out of the game, destroy stabilizes the current meta whether you like it or not and if it were to be nerfed to oblivion there could be large consequences to the meta afterwards. For example, without ranger, any army that does not run super cheap champions would be practically incapable of dislodging a lilith wedged in the center of the board, which would only lead to more defense and not less of it
While you are at it Grand, how about ditching behemoth.
tl;dr stop with this awetalehu "adjust costs" nonsense, ranger is fundamentally problem design, no amount of adjusting costs will fix this until you effectively delete the unit
I don't feel actually deleting Ranger would be a good idea, so this effectively deletes Ranger
Better to change the ability somehow instead of changing the cost or deleteing it from the game
Destroyless Unit changes (in general, no movesets):
Salamander/FireElemental - Meteor could work as a fiery non-destroy ability
Pyromancer/FireMage - Destroy Target could be replaced with a 7 turn "Fire" status that temporarily nulls and disables. This can apply to Salamander and FE as well. Be aware of Alchemist if you do this.
Archer/Ranger - This is probably the healthiest unit to keep destroy on (Ranger if it loses ortho-destroy), but if so it could be limited to twice a game or have a 10 turn cooldown. If not, make it a ranged thundermage because idk what else gives a good "bow and arrow" flavor. If nothing else, make it a ranged Poison.
Dryad - Honestly make saplings better morale storage and give it a move or attack ability, and remove the ability to transform. Dryad is a weak unit as is surprisingly.
Soulkeeper - Change soulkeep into
[Pay 1]: (Unblockable) Swap places with enemy and transform them into ally Ghost.Fireball - Change destroy target into attack only
Lilith/SoulFlare - I'm not sure how to change this, perhaps charm lasts until the unit attacks and then gets attacked (the attack is blocked in that case)?
Necromancer - Allow Necromancer to instead use death locations to create BonePiles. Oh and raise the pay for Lich and Necromancer's ability each by 1 or 2.
VoidMage - Make this lose Range 3 void, and have Void instead last 10 turns or until a enemy champion dies.
That would make Fireball stronger. As it is now, it kills itself; if it changes to Attack only, it does the same thing, but stays alive so that the opponent has to kill it.
...well, assuming that it doesn't also get "On Attack: kill self", but if it does, it is exactly the same (apart from where the fallen unit marker goes).
nuance
This post is trash because it wants to nerf firemage/change it's ability to something lame. Firemage is literally the best unit in the whole game, and you are saying that it's unfun? Get out. Now.
Meteor is a slow destroy ability, but Firemage would more need to be changed because of it having destroy target.
People don't like slow destroys due to it being extremely nuanced (lol). I personally like slow destroys, but Firemage has Magic Destroy Target and Ranger mostly shows that Destroy Target pieces are what's wrong with the current meta.
Ranger destroy is totally different on ranger than firemage, firemage is range 1 and can't effectively kite minions.
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