How Would Beast Units Work?

[thecrimsonflash]

Earlier I was looking at a thread about everyone's top 5 characters not yet in heroes and I saw a lot of people saying Leathe, Nahila and Ranulf, while I would love the inclusion of beast units in Heroes I have thought a lot about how to make them work as effectively as manaketes. I would hate for them to be forced into a tiny box with having them just use beast stone, beast rune, beast stone + or stuff like that, giving them weapons like claws and fangs may seem reasonable, but what about for units who don't use these weapon types Nahila doesn't use claws and Lethe and Ranulf don't use fangs, not to mention, I would hate for beast units to be forced to use kind of generic weapons, preferably I would like for them to have the variety of weapon effects that manaketes have been blessed with, I feel like perhaps naming them after skills would be nice but then you have a problem with skills like howl, I feel like it would have the dark breath effect (decreasing atk and spd) but that wouldn't allow for them to just use the typical animations (without it feeling weird anyways) so that may be a bust, then again maybe I'm just putting too much thought into it, I also wonder if beasts should have colors or should they just be colorless to contrast with manaketes.

Also the addition of these units would be a bit tricky (because you can't add just one at a time) but I suppose that after an update, they would also release an entirely beast related banner.

Do any of these seem reasonable enough or can anyone think of some better system to use instead?

[property of nuvelle]

I just thought of colorless range 1 units.

[Interdimensional Observer]

A generic "Strike" weapon type has been the one idea that has been passed around for all save the Dragon Laguz perhaps.

I'd not want to relegate the various Beast Bird and Dragon Tribes to a particular color, and color them instead on a unit-by-unit basis.

Colorless wouldn't be bad either, and has the advantage of fearing nothing but -ravens. But shoving 3 cats, 3 tigers, 3 lions, 2 wolves, 3 ravens, 3 hawks, 4 Fates beasties, and 2 Taguels into one category might be a bit of a waste.

[salinea]

I would have them mostly handled like dragons (spread across the three colors, close contact damage). They need a generic "natural weapon" category that they can pass around between them but doesn't sound weird depending on the species (the claw/fang/beak problem). "Strike" does indeed sound okay for that.

Targeting res might not fit though, but some kind of other gimmick needs to be found to give them a specificity. You could have some mobility factoring: Bird Laguz in the Flyer category, maybe give the beast Laguz & Taiguel/Shapeshifters 3-moves as well. (Dragon Laguz handled like Manakete)

Then have a short range of specific weapons by unit. Something like... Nailah starts with "Stunning Strike" (with some kind of specific effect about it), Naesala starts with "Swift Strike" (likewise), Tibarn with "Fierce Strike" etc.. And just like the Breath weapons, you can pass them around between any of the Beast units.

 

I feel like something like that would be what fits the balance of the game as it currently is best.

Edited August 13, 2017 by salinea

[Othin]

Matching exact character abilities isn't necessary and isn't how Heroes has ever done it. Could be done fine with just making a "strike" weapon type as another physical melee weapon type that's either all colorless or with red/blue/green variations and make it so infantry "strike" users get claws and/or fangs due to being beasts while flier "strike" units get talons and/or beaks due to being birds. Like with dragons, the weapons could be inherited across color if they go for the three colors rather than colorless (which is my preference, personally) but having them be restricted by movement type like certain passives would be important for keeping bird and beast weapons separate.

[r_n]

the beast & birds all into using beast stones, make new beast stones out of thin air to fill out other niches. You can even use the "laguz gem" and "Satori Seal" items as makeshift beast stones with different attributes. A ton of weapons in this game are made out of new things whole cloth, so that's nothing new. Just hand wave that they use the stones to immediately transform without the silly timer mechanic.

Lions/Tigers/hawks can be green

Cats/wolves/raven can be i dont know red 

taguel/kitsune/wolfskins can be blue 

Or swap the colors around, or do a case by case basis like the magic & to a lesser extent dragons do.

Dragon laguz can just use Dragonstones. Again, there's no real reason not to. 

[Alkaid]

I just get the gut feeling they'll be colorless and effective against both cavalry and fliers. Colorless because not getting WTA would make them a more universal counter to all horses and fliers, which they've been purposefully building up both of all this time. So everyone's had time to build up these strong horse and flier teams that were everywhere in arena and now we get a new class of units that helps counter that. Since they focused on horses for a while, and between S Corrin and Valter we might be focusing on fliers for the moment, I think that could be their next step. I could see them handling them like dragons too, but I feel like business-wise they might want to make the colorless pool more worthwhile, and baiting people into pulling for beasts on a color that's pretty weak to use orbs on right now could be a good idea on their end.

And I could be totally wrong, and that's cool too since I just want my Velouria regardless of how they handle her

[Cute Chao]

I think making them strong against both flier and cavalry would be far too overpowered. 

I imagine they'll handle them like the dragons and give them stones. The only exception to this would be the herons, who I can easily see as being colourless. The rest don't scream colourless to me, and it seems odd lumping a whole lot of different types into one colour, in my opinion. 

I really want them to be added, though. Nailah, Rafiel, Reyson, Leanne, Tibarn, Naesala, Ranulf, Volug, Kaden, Keaton... Too many characters I want for them not to be. 

[Vaximillian]

Give them red/green/blue strikes according to species.

Birds are blue, thus weak to wind (green). Dragons are red, thus weak to thunder (blue). Beasts are green, thus weak to fire (red).

Herons are grey because special snowflakes.

Birds and herons (subset of birds but who cares) fly, the others walk.

[Seafarer]

Split them into three colours based on their natural weapons. Green Strike would be claws - cats, taguel, and wolfskin. Blue Strike would be talons - all the bird laguz. Red Strike would be fangs - tigers, wolves, lions and kitsune. Obviously, unlike with breath, these three would be separate weapon types, so you can't cross-inherit their weapon skills. Dragon laguz fit pretty easily into the breath paradigm that already exists, with black dragons being blue, white dragons being green, and red dragons being... red. Lastly, this leaves open the option for Ashera to show up with a colourless strike type (Judge).

[NekoKnight]

I think Vaximillian and Seafarer have some interesting ideas for dividing them into colors.

I mentioned this in the other thread but I think it would be cool if beast laguz had a unique weapon (or laguz locked skill) that let them move through forests unhindered.

[Ae†her]

I think they should be like the Manketes except they'll be their own class with similar BSTs. They should deal physical damage instead of magical, as their attacks are literally straight up clawing people, or biting down on them. Also they shouldn't be vulnerable to things like Zanbato and anti-cavalry weapons, they're not horses.