@Dev_VKC @Dev_BRD I just want to mention that i love the move design of this monster. Very unique and very well though. He has a very good potential.
However like mentioned above, he has some problems with speed / death sentence comes to soon. Would be happy if you consider tweak him a bit.
Btw, protect sounds amazing on him, too amazing. Will def make him op, so i vote no 
Put him to sleep before protecting, hmm? If I may ask, whoâs going to pull that off? Ankou may be slow, but heâs still faster than Stormhunter and Goldtail, not that people run them in front often anyway. SS relies on rng to do the job, as do wraith and sweetfeather if theyâre in 5th, hoping itâll land on him. Sorry, but with ankou up front no oneâs going to land a sleep on him in time. As for knock back and repulse, first of all, if the most overpowered monster in the game is the only counter, youâre doing it wrong. Second, did you forget the devs are pushing gravity field, a hard counter to knock back? I could easily run ankou and Regalion with say, Delugazar and Soulstealer with bitter in 5th. Ankou will force the enemy to kill him, giving you a huge edge later in the battle, and in the process it will give BB and SS(not to mention Regalion with his seal) ample time to mess the enemy up. I may be overstating it, but Iâm just highly uncomfortable with the idea of an immortal protector. Things like that are how metas get broken.
Iâm interested to hear what @Dev_VKC thinks about Ankou. There are some solid tweaks listed here, nice job people! We can argue till the cows come home but getting a little insight into what the devs think would be super helpful in guiding the conversation.
You have a grudge against motor that is making your opinions toward the game biased.
Not to mention, your situation is irrelevant, as currently he ends up as a sweeper already that you have to kill, giving a huge edge later in the fight. The only difference here is that you have control over it in this case, where in itâs current situation itâs up to the opponent to choose damage control.
I was actually thinking horrorclaw @Zardecil
That can work too.
You can probably kill it with a move that kills the user/has recoil and it wonât reincarnate, same as Reven
Cannibalise it so the enemy gets it. This doesnât trigger his ârevenant strikeâ and if you donât run protectors itâs basically 300 tu bronzeshell.
It kind of feels like you addressed one sentence out of everything I said. My vendetta against Motordragon really doesnât play a part in my argument, so attacking that alone doesnât do much for you.
Honestly all Iâm trying to say is Ankou seems perfectly viable to me already. If left alone heâs almost guaranteed to accumulate kills, and if he dies he promises lots of extra carnage later on. Sleep and knock back counter him, and thatâs fine; nothing is unstoppable. In other words, if it ainât broke donât fix it. I just think link DS should be a little less restricted since link is hard enough to maintain already.
My point is this:
Take a look at any other sweeper. They need setup. But what do you get for that setup? Azrazel can give you 6+ kills. Delugazar feeds off of 2 before he solokills the enemy team. These are killable, sure. But they have a massive payoff when done right.
Then you look at this guy. He comes in the field, eternal revenges, and then gets 2 bloodcraves before he dies. This is assuming he is killed at all beforehand. When you set him up with link in frontline, then he will get maybe 1, maybe 2 kills. He doesnât have any real reason to set him up.
The reason that I want to give him protect teammates is that that way you have a way to keep him relevant, while still making sure he gets hosed by the same counters.
My opinion is that he doesnât do enough. However, this is in theorycraft, as we havenât had a proper pvp yet.
Letâs reserve judgement until then shall we?
So I hadnât bothered making an account on this new forum yet but reading this thread lol I just had to! Advance warning, this is a bit of a rant.
It frustrates me to no end that people are CONSTANTLY calling for buffs, nerfs and alterations to so many monsters in this game. One of the things which makes me love this game so much is the beautiful balancing of all the monster designs. Some monsters are weaker, others stronger, some for PvP and others are good everywhere. However, no matter what the game is like everyone has drastically different views on all the topics.
Each person has only a selection of all the legendaries available and wants certain ones of those to be better or to do specific things which they may not be meant to do. For example, periodically we get a thread made about Cryo/Sanct and Nebel/Cosmo from the PvP crowd who want these duplicating monsters to be buffed so they are PvP viable. However, all duplicating monsters being more PvE-focused because the enemy AI cannot handle them as well as a human player can and so buffs could easily make them OP for PvE. I try my best to look at monsters with a broader perspective and see what they are MEANT to be used for, therefore hopefully better understanding whether they need something changed. I also try to be unbiased when it comes to whether or not I have the monster. I think if everyone tried really hard to do this then the forum posts would be very different to how they currently are.
Anyway, the reason I bring all that up is because here we have a classic case of everyone being quite upset with a monster which they thought was better than it is. I donât mean to insult you with that (please donât think Iâm calling you stupid). Ankoudragon is a cool monster which is very strong but not among the best and itâs easy to make the mistake of thinking it might be one of the best. I am very much against the ideas shared here and I hope youâll hear me out now.
There is only one bad design about Ankoudragon: Instant Accelerate.
Outside of the front line he has entrance speed of 85s. Letâs say you donât have the SS then it goes like thisâŚ
(85s) -> Eternal Revenge -> (155s) -> Bloodcrave -> (255s) -> Bloodcrave
With the SSâŚ
(85s) -> Instant Accelerate -> Eternal Revenge -> (142s) -> Bloodcrave -> (222s) -> Bloodcrave
So either way, you only get 3 kills. Therefore the only true benefit from Instant Accelerate is when Ankou is in the front line, before it dies. This is the time when you want Ankou to cause the most havoc possible so your opponent is forced to kill it. Itâs quite handy here but not too special.
I would much rather see a different secret skill on Ankoudragon because instant accelerate is not that useful. Maybe Fast Accelerate Team? That would be a nice one to have scattered in your team each time it dies.
However, everything else about Ankou is awesome. Itâs one of the most reliable sweepers in the game which should get 3 kills in PvP and probably far more in PvE. Itâs INCREDIBLE for UC, especially when duplicated with Aurodragon / Atrahasis. There are some hard counters of repulse/knockback and sleep which are great as well as the âsoft counterâ of putting its health low so it canât bloodcrave without sacrificing itself. Itâs also got to be used in the front line to be most effective and benefits greatly from a link shadow line-up. What do you get when you put all that together⌠a beautifully balanced monster that can be handled in some situations but if you canât handle it then youâre at a big loss. Also, itâs mainly PvE-focused which SIMPLY CANNOT BE in the eyes of most here.
I DO NOT want to see Ankoudragonâs speed buffed nor for it to survive longer. Okay so it canât kill as many monsters as other sweepers but itâs good in most situations and if an opponent canât handle it then they can get themselves into a whole world of trouble! Ankou shines in PvE but is a nicely designed monster so itâs quite good for PvP too. It has a few very decent combos like with Aurodragon and you can use a monster with Gravity Field to protect it from getting knocked back. I think everyone is expecting way too much from this monster and wanting it to do different things from what it was made to do. With higher speed it would become brutally strong with the Eternal Revenge and become too tricky to kill off each time it enters (in the situations where you need to do this).
P.S. Sorry if anyone took offence to anything I wrote. I get a little wound up when Iâm always seeing people asking for their new monster to be buffed. Thereâs a funny pattern which happens⌠two monsters get released at once in a special festival like this and straight after thereâs a âX needs to be buffedâ which is the one that was overhyped. Then festivals like the Zhulong one where it wasnât guaranteed in the 6th pack we get a thread a week or two later saying âX needs to be nerfedâ from all the people who didnât get it. Iâm trying to keep my sanity with this.
Not only this but is there another monster that can bring back other monster on the way or anything? I mean there are likely some scary good pairing with atra and auro in the makingâŚ
Regarding the 5th paragraph⌠you forgot about bonuses bro. Full bonus reduces by 15%, so start at 85, +48 for eternal revenge, and then you can in fact get 3 bloodcraves in before he dies. So yes, Instant Accelerate helps.
Other than that, Iâm totally with you. We do need to watch it when weâre asking to buff pve centered monsters lest they become too convenient in pve. Which is why I think the only buffs that those monsters receive should be able to boost their pvp performance while having little to no effect in pve, such as adding an additional kill option or increasing speed.
And yes, it kind of occurred to me that raising Ankouâs speed might not be the way to go, now that you say it yes, having more speed would be too much to handle. The enemy should have at least a little chance of possibly stalling Ankou a little further. So, I think the only change thatâs really necessary is making death sentence reusable. A link restriction is harsh enough, so I donât see why not give him another chance to get his thing going if he gets thwarted.
Okay simple, make the secret skill protect teammates.
This way youâre giving up an immediate kill for the ability to have it survive and maybe have it do something later.
Itâs going to get a total of 3 moves or less every time it spawns.
Am I saying itâs weak? No. Iâm saying that it simply doesnât give a lot after the first death. Itâs not annoying enough imo.
Note that youâre entitled to your opinion, and so am I. Also note that I have the monster and you can theorycraft a lot when you donât have it, you canât come to logical conclusions without actually being able to test the monster.
I have him, and while I believe that in theory it could use something to allow the owner to prolong itâs life, I havenât had anyone actually kill it for me to find out.
PvE, sure. Itâs fantastic there. But one shouldnât go âitâs great in pve, so it has to suck everywhere else.â Like with nebel. Itâs illogical.
I am curious as to hear your perspective with both cryo and nebelronix. Cryo while is a cloner, doesnât do enough in PvE due to the fact that it depends on basic, non-scaling attacks that donât do a lot to the enemy team when itâs buffed. So it doesnât have a place in PvE, and it doesnât have a place in PvP. So Iâm curious as to where this useless thing should go. As no one uses it at all.
Nebel suffers from the same issue-almost. The issue with nebel is that all the stuff is in the back, and one ultra attack all kills the clones and ends the game. Meaning that it doesnât have any value in the end except for trading 1 for 1, for a single kill in death revenge.
After the first resurrect, he doesnât get the bonus anymore. He loses it.
Zardecil already said it but yeah the point I was making about instant accelerate is that Ankou loses the potion boost after he dies. We can safely assume most people will use Ankou in the front line so in almost all cases when itâs coming in and dying 300s later it will have no boost.
Whatâs really interesting about Ankouâs 85s entrance speed is itâs almost identical to Revenarchion. When you hatch Reven from the egg it comes at half speed 78% -> 39% which makes it ~84s entrance speed. I think this was absolutely intentional that they decided 85s is the right time for both these monsters to have before their turn where they wreck havoc.
Iâm glad to see you agree with me about the PvE/PvP balancing problem. I think that most monsters are brilliantly balanced for PvE when they are released and so the majority of buff requests should be focusing lots on how to improve it for PvP without affecting PvE too greatly. Ankou is a prime example of that and brings me onto Zardecilâs idea nicelyâŚ
@Zardecil In theory I love your idea to make the secret skill protect teammates. I think it would be great for PvP as you choose whether you want to use your Ankou offensively or defensively in the situation. It also combats the annoying counter to it in the front line with repulse as you can force your opponent to kill it and trigger the chaos. However, for PvE this secret skill would be utterly over the top OP. Iâm sure this needs no explanation for you now Iâve pointed it out.
Here are two other ideas for the secret skillâŚ
Cryo/Sancta donât deal much with their assisted attacks in PvE (relative to the TU) which is a shame. However, with the speed buff to their clones in the recent update they now FINALLY get a turn faster than the enemies do if they all get stunned from killing the previous clone. Itâs hard to justify using them because theyâre so unreliable and if your team gets taken over by Cryo/Sancta then youâre in quite a bad position. Personally I think they only become âbadâ when the quality of your team increases so that Cryo/Sancta interrupts your momentum too much. For players with lots of legendaries they donât have much to offer but I have to say that Sancta can often do incredibly well alongside Aurodragon. Iâve experimented a little and you can get some beautiful stunning going on and even use Sancta to heal your Aurodragon because if it dies then no worries because you just got another copy at the back of your team! Cryo/Sancta work best as support monsters and can be very strong if the opponentâs team doesnât have much stun protection (you kill the ones which are stun immune/absorb to make this happen). No other monsters can do so much stun to the opponentâs team so I guess that is their niche. The problem is trying to get that to work in your team which pretty much requires Aurodragon. Maybe Geomagnus could be useful here too. You definitely need to run them alongside sweepers, preferably ones with hold ground.
Nebel/Cosmo are strictly UC use I think. Other monsters offer so much more for general PvE. Maybe if we get a monster with instant switch friend and give turn this could create a good combo with Nebel/Cosmo (although there would probably be better combos with this). However, despite what I just said I think Cosmo is actually alright for PvE heâs just not that helpful. The secret skill offers a little more reliability at the back of the team and is a good support skill while heâs alive earlier on in the team. So overall I think Cosmo is fine but Nebel needs a better secret skill in my opinion.
So when I say that I think that cryo/sanctallion/nebel/cosmo need a buff, do you get what I mean? They donât offer much, and while they might be okay, there are just better options.
When I say I want a buff for something, it means that I want a reason that I should use it over other stuff. Thatâs all. Itâs not about me getting a new monster, and then wanting it to be OP all of the sudden because I want to be able to have fun with it.
All Iâm saying here is, give me a reason to use them over other things. In theory, they work in a certain way. In practice, itâs almost never with the time and effort to get them going like that. Thatâs all Iâm saying when I think something needs a buff.
As for the ankou idea, I think that for PvE you have to consider random distribution. Sometimes, your ankou will end up near the edge of your reinforcements and will kill things over and over again. Other times, itâs going to end up at the back of your team.
Also consider that the AI, once the thing is charged, is going to go nuts already trying to kill it. So vs AI it already technically has protect teammates.
When I made that rant earlier I wasnât directing at you personally. I know that youâre a big advocate for giving each monster a viable use rather than asking for certain ones to become OP. Nebel and Cosmo will always have their viable use in UC so theyâre covered to some extent at least. Cryo and Sancta donât have that luxury but dealing stun after stun has some potential so maybe we just need more monsters that can take advantage of this (in the future this may be the case).
I believe AI targeting is a little more complicated than that⌠if they were were going to target Ankou first practically all the time then when itâs in the backline it would be a bit crazy haha the AI would just kill it over and over indefinitely.
âRegarding the 5th paragraphâŚâ lmao