u/Earraigh

"The Lady sits on her throne, devouring our offerings and demanding more. Yet, She does not try to rule over us in any particular way, so She is actually better than any jarl."

I decided to subject myself to voluntary torture, brainstorming a NR deck for a self-imposed All Factions Sihil challenge. Here's the resulting abomination: surprisingly viable and generally enjoyable to play. Coming up with a reliable way to evolve Sihil was the most challenging part, but with enough tweaks, a ping-slinging nightmare has proven itself more than enough to reliably get dat juicy Masterful.

I'm not very knowledgeable with NR so there might be way better card choices for the deck. Feel free to suggest anything.

If you were looking for a fun off-meta deck to toy with, you've come to the right place. If you're more into telling me my deckbuilding is garbage, be my guest.

Because she must annoy players of other, completely unrelated games aswell. Giochiamo.

Today I decided to join a Breach match to complete an execution order. Immediately upon loading into the match, my character got stricken by deafness, hearing nothing but distant screams of soccer fans. Suffering I’ve experienced is not important. More important is the fact that I got randomly kicked out of the game without any error message or warning - just dueling a Juren, then suddenly the scene changes to a minute long loading screen leading to the main menu.

I decided to cool off by playing Dominion, which decided that I don’t need to use or see the chat this match. Every single player had a red single-cloud chat icon, I assume the communication subsystem failed to load entirely.

Finishing my silent and non-toxic Dominion, I decided to subject myself to more CBT and complete the Breach order. This time I wasn’t deaf thankfully and the match was surprisingly smooth if we don’t mention the enemy Sohei’s weapon disappearing completely. Probably lost it somewhere on the way. Both gates down, the boss is getting pelted with ballista bolts, then suddenly - kicked again. Same as the first game. No warning, just sudden darkness.

I’m genuinely impressed by Ubisoft’s inability to make this game playable. I don’t even ask for balance of characters, I don’t even want a matchmaking revamp. I want a bare fucking minimum of being able to play the game without getting constantly kicked, randomly muted, restricted from matchmaking by a random anticheat fart, going deaf or staring at the desktop when it decides to crash completely.

I wish the developers a very pleasant retrograde ejaculation.

If you look at the shadow closely, there is no more place for doubt. I’m sorry for whoever I am disappointing with this reveal but it’s no longer possible to ignore the facts - it’s undoubtedly a pitchfork wielded by Peasant

With the Vikings consistently ruining the Knights’ supply of flour and trampling their oat fields, I am confident in my prediction: the next hero will be a humble, pissed off, dung covered Peasant

The next Knight hero should be so shit he’s borderline unplayable. I don’t mean just underpowered or poorly balanced. I mean intentionally made so weak he’s a challenge/meme hero. Make him the HotS Murky of For Honor.

Behold

The Peasant
Hybrid
80 Health

600ms Opener Lights(you read that right)
1200ms Opener Top Heavy(yes, you’re still reading that right)
800ms Opener Side Heavies

Combos:
Light-Heavy
Light-Light-Heavy
Heavy-Heavy
Heavy-Light-Heavy

Moves and properties:

We Do Sow - Opener Top Heavy gains Hyperarmor property 600ms in and otherwise acts like Gldiator’s Skewer without the Unblockable property: pins, applies Bleeding and allows Peasant to throw the target for a wallsplat. Does not end the chain.

Butter Up(forward dodge+GB) - a staggering bash that can wallsplat but doesn’t guarantee or do any damage by itself. Starts the chain, can be done at any point in the chain by the GB input.

Bend Like Reed(dodge+heavy) - a slow, generic dodge attack and rollcatcher. The forward dodge variant can be feinted.

I Know Butter - We Do Sow and forward Bend Like Reed can be softfeinted into Butter Up.

Harvesting Season - Finisher Heavies have the Unblockable property and apply minor Bleed.

Superior Block Dodges - Bend Like Reed gains the Hyperarmor property after blocking an attack with a directional dodge.

Hidden Stance: Grovel - Peasant prostrates himself, dodging attacks and bashes during the windup animation. Enemies locked on Peasant instantly change targets/unlock if no available targets nearby. While Groveling, Peasant can’t be locked onto, gains the equivalent of the Stealth feat and can crawl very slowly. If Peasant takes damage during Grovel, he’s knocked prone.

Snatch(GB during Grovel) - Peasant quickly reaches for the target’s foot, knocks them down and exits Grovel.

Drip ideas:

Instead of getting better or more decorated gear, his clothes get worse with the hero’s Reputation level. His shirt becomes torn and sewn together, patches of straw poke out, his skin becomes dirtier and shows signs of common medieval diseases.

Unique Feats:

Level 1: Honest Taxpayer(passive) - Peasant contributes a portion of his Renown gains to the rest of his team.
Level 2: Corn-Fed(passive) - Peasant restores half his missing health and gains a 30% damage buff for 10 seconds after successfully hitting an enemy with We Do Sow. 30 seconds cooldown.
Level 3: Off My Lawn!(active) - A wide Unblockable sweep that knocks down enemies in a wide arc in front of Peasant. 120 seconds cooldown.
Level 4: I’m Being Repressed!(active) - Peasant gains 50% Damage Reduction and grants all of his allies 50% Movement Speed while they’re moving in Peasant’s direction. Lasts until an ally appears near Peasant or for 20 seconds. 120 seconds cooldown after I’m Being Repressed! ends.

I feel an urgent need to wash myself after getting healed by this creature

I hate Wild

I recently remembered that Ubisoft own the franchise, so a collab is at the very least possible if not reasonable since the designers can only milk Assassin’s Creed for so long. It also won’t aesthetically clash too much with the way they’re developing For Honor for a good while.

Skin suggestions:

Warmonger - Hierophant Anastasya

Introduced in HoMM VI, she’s one of the rare good things that happened with the franchise under Ubisoft’s supervision. The goth baddie we don’t deserve but desperately need and a decent alternative to waiting for a helmetless armor customisation option. WM and Anastasya share a common theme of threatening people with an edgy set of claws, except now the claws will be glowing green! Corruption-themed abilities and magic-looking executions also make a lot of sense for this one.

Raider - Crag Hack

No formal introduction required, he’s THE barbarian and fits Raider’s design perfectly. Half-naked, horned helmet, rocks a big ass axe.

Khatun - Shadow Slayer Ranleth

First introduced in Tribes of the East, Ranleth is a dark elf hero with a memorable portrait and a family-friendly dress code. Her regal and intimidating character and the Shadow Slayer hero general design fit Khatun perfectly, mirroring the personality traits and the outlandish armor style. Free choice of a face mask right off the artwork to fit Khatun even better and visible face using Ranleth’s hero portrait as a reference to again compensate for the lack of unmasked customisation options.

Execution ideas:

Dark Messiah has some great animations and iconic ways to unalive people to use as references.

Sareth’s Farewell - based on the dagger throw because I absolutely adore it. The enemy attempts to limp away only for you to whip out a couple of daggers dramatically and toss one into their cowardly back. Bonus points if the animations match Dark Messiah identically.

Slippery Slope - a nod to the environmental interactivity of Dark Messiah. The enemy staggers backwards and charges at you while you cast Freeze on the ground and step aside. The opponent slips on the frozen ground, falls on his back and gets his head integrated into the soil with a bit of help from your foot.

Special effects:

I admittedly got kinda lazy with these. All of those are supposed to be the rotating indicators that appear below HoMM V heroes depending on their faction.

Heresh Devotion - the Necropolis indicator when idle, meant for Anastasya. Emotes and executions feature sickly green fumes and phantom spiderlings.

Ranaar Savagery - the Stronghold indicator when idle, for our boy Crag Hack. Emotes and execution effects look like the Blood Rage proc visual effect.

Ygg-Chall Secrecy - the Dungeon idle indicator for Ranleth. Emotes and executions add an aura of darkness with purple stars/eyes in it, referencing Malassa and the Faceless.

Keep in mind that this is nothing but my wet dreams and feel free to share your thoughts.

"He proclaimed to his worshippers but one commandment: Kill."

So basically, if I tech out my [[E.T.C., Band Manager]] with [[Deathwarden]], [[Platebreaker]] and [[Ashen Elemental]], I should always have a way of ruining the day of a good portion of meta decks. Deathwarden for Tick Tock and Big Shaman, Platebreaker for 9 out of 10 Warrior decks and Ashen for Quasar. Am I dumb or am I dumb?

She’s alive and well, King Krush is paying child support to this day

Wasn’t me