New Footman Defend

General Discussion
1

I havent found the forum for balance, but … afaik footman got changed after like 15 years. Instead of 70% pierce reduction (30% received) the footman defend now is effective 65% damage reduction from pierce (35% received) and with RNG, 30% of Pierce dmg is returned.

Imo, that is a pretty strange change. 3/10 defend reflects pierce back without receiving dmg. 7/10 the footman takes at 50% damage reduction. Thematically, it reminds of spell reflect from wow.

Do I like it ? Somewhat. But majority of pierce damage dealers utilize medium armor, meaning, the damage reflected is also RNG-based so sometimes your footman returns all damage in a row or nothing at all. Is additional RNG a cool factor ? I think from a perspective of ‘competitiveness’ it adds unpredictability on top on unstable dps output of all units. Reflecting pierce back at medium-armor is then more a cool factor than something really doing damage.

What I also think is that reflecting pierce damage is actually hilarious. Raise a shield and make it deflect not to the side, but right back at full power. This is great with arrows, because it is simply, impossible. Instead of reflecting pierce, I think it would be better to reflect direct hit magic damage. That would be my suggestion.

However, if deflecting pierce is kept, shouldnt there be a possibility to direct it elsewhere ? like the closest enemy ? Magic attacks generally account for some energy-based weaponry, so the deflector shields could have a chance to reflect those back at the user. Or keep it the way it is … heavy armor is weak to magic damage and defend could at least reflect with no reduction like it does with pierce with Defend active.

Or maybe I like footmen too much :stuck_out_tongue:

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2

That does sound weird. I’m no ladder player, but even to a untrained ear, it seems odd to add on more RNG. The more competitive, the less RNG there should be.

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3

I think I never played pvp in W3 or FT. (I did 1 game of W2 beating my high school teacher and classmate both 2v1 :smiley: ) That was 15 y ago.

To be honest I think it is a waste. This, new defend. Without RNG it would look, 35% received pierce damage, 30% reflected. 35% nullified with shield.

I think it is thematically wrong. Spell reflect from warrior wow feels better, but I dont think this chance would be accepted by the diehards, because it would greatly expand the utlity of the unit. If it reflected magic damage. Footman would still go down but reflecting a frost wyrm shot would be doing damage to units out of reach. For magic attacks, RNG could be somewhat acceptable, because defend doesnt reduce the received damage, such a defend could be used like a sort of thorns aura.

4

The return damage has been in the game for at least 10 years. The change came later in TFT balance, but definitely not one of the recent changes.

5

I played 1.28 and no reflection were there. I tried the 1.30.1, where blizz claims I dont have the game bought only licensed (I bought it, I didnt license, so I do not acknowledge what theyd like, they have no right to do that anyway, they do have a license to the IP which I respect) and there is a new defend with 30% pierce damage reflection chance, with 70% chance to actually hit the footman and do 50% of the damage. All of that accounts for a RNG-based 65% damage reduction as well as 30% damage reflection.

6

I just played against someone and honestly thought he was cheating lol. Why did they change this? I was attacking his foots with wyverns, footmen are literally anti air now wtf???

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