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Dúrin's Bane: A reimagining for the iconic spell

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Julio229:
Hello there!

A few months ago, I devised a concept for a reimagined implementation of the Balrog in the game. I didn't initially mean to post it as a suggestion, but thanks to the encouragement of my fellow Wikia team members I decided to improve on it and post it as an official suggestion for the Misty Mountains spellbook, once the gobbos roll around  :P.

So, without further ado, here it is:

Tier 4 spell for the Misty Mountains: Dúrin's Bane



On buying the spell, it unlocks a new hero: Shaman of Bane, and a spellbook power to summon the Balrog, that is hostile to everyone, temporarily. The Balrog can only be summoned near the Shaman of the Bane. (Necro's idea: The Balrog can be summoned even when the Shaman of the Bane is not on the field.)

At this concept's core is the idea that the Balrog is not on the side of the Goblins at all, and is instead a force that will obliterate anyone that dares to stand in its path. The Shaman of the Bane, through its skillset, will be able to use several abilities that can allow the Misty Mountains player to direct the Balrog's path of onslaught, but if the player is not careful enough, the ability can hinder the player himself, granting an element of risk-reward to the Balrog that I feel fits its nature a lot.

The Shaman of the Bane's skillset is as follows:

Level 1 – Shaman of the Bane – The Shaman of the Bane is one of Moria's most prominent commanders, purely because of the craftiness and boldness he has displayed at manipulating the fell creature that dwells in the depths of Moria: Dúrin's Bane. When the Shaman of Bane is recruited, the Balrog will be summonable from the spellbook. He is hostile to everyone and will move randomly. Activate to create a decoy point, that will debuff nearby enemies by a small amount and deceive the Balrog, leading it there, attacking anything in its path, including the Shaman himself, and also granting two levels to the Shaman of the Bane each time it is used.

Level 3 – Blocked paths – The Shaman of Bane orders a troll to bring down a column, blocking a path temporarily so the Balrog won't go through it. Also knocks back enemies directly below the area where it is activated.

Level 5 – Bring the prisoners – The Shaman orders the goblins to drop some dwarven prisoners on an enemy building, creating a decoy point there. The Balrog will fly there and obliterate the building and keep attacking the area surrounding it.

Level 7 – Hellfire – The Shaman creates an illusion of a dwarven army in a selected place, making the Balrog go over there rapidly and breathe fire in a big area, killing the enemies there.

For this ability, there are two options for the Balrog to travel to the destination: either flying or igniting while gaining a speed buff. The main con for flying is that it'd be too similar to the Shaman's level 5 ability, while igniting, which differs from flying a lot and fits quite a bit, could make it much easier to dodge the fire breath.

Level 10 – Deal with the Dark – For a cost of 2000, the Shaman will make an offering to the Balrog, upgrading the spellbook power for a single use. This will make it so the Balrog is on your side when summoned. Its timer, however, will be shorter than the neutral Balrog's.

The Balrog's timer while summoned as hostile to everyone would be slightly longer than usual, to allow the Misty Mountains player to try and make full use of it, and to make it a more relevant force on the battlefield. His timer while controlled would be the usual short Balrog timer, to avoid it becoming OP since it'd now be in the player's hands for a short time, ready for the Misty Mountains player to make use of all its capabilities.

When the Balrog is under the player's control, it'd have the abilities it used to have in 3.8.1. I consider them to be very fitting, and I see no real need to change them.


All in all, I think that this may be a suitable reimagining for the Balrog spell, given the idea of making every spellbook power unique that started with every spellbook's rework in 4.5, and that will add a lot of flavour to the Goblin faction once it is released.

I hope you enjoyed this concept, if you have any suggestions or feedback, feel free to post it  :)!

Credit:

- My fellow Edain Wikia team members, for helping with fine-tuning the concept and encouraging me to post it  :)

In favour:

1. Oakenshield224
2. Captain Corrigan
3. Trondheim
4. Strider
5. CaptainChunk!
6. Seleukos
7. Necro
8. Gandalf7000 (Thrandy on Discord)
9. Smeargollum
10. Fredius

Against:

The_Necromancer0:
Having discussed this topic in length with Julio, I am of course in favour of this change. I believe it satisfies very well both the lore requirement which stated that the goblins and Balrog co-habited but didn't really interact nor willingly aided each other and the game engine requirement of the Balrog only making short appearances because of the processing load he represents for the game as well as being an interesting mechanic. There were a couple of ideas Julio and I disagreed on, I still very much like this concept and fully support it but I just wanted to give my 2 cents:

Shaman of the Bane - I think the Balrog should also be summonable even when you don't have the Shaman, this presents a strategical choice for the player as they can either summon the Balrog as soon as they purchase the power but lose out on a lot of potential damage or wait for the shaman to be recruited. This also applies for when the Shaman is killed, does the player wait to revive him or does he uses the power straight away potentially catching their opponent off guard. I also think the Shaman shouldn't need to level up, because of his status as a tier 4 power, he should come out of the pit at level 10 and with all his abilities unlocked, reducing the micro investment required for what is already an expensive spell.

Hellfire - This tweak is purely a visual change, and also because of my personal belief that orcs have nowhere near enough magical skill to fool a Balrog. But instead of an illusion of Dwarves, the Shaman should summon a large army of Golbins dressed in dwarven rags.

That's all I would personally change, it's not necessarily better it's just a different take on Julio's base concept. I really hope this suggestion gets implemented  [uglybunti]

Julio229:

--- Zitat von: The_Necromancer0 am 11. Feb 2020, 21:31 --- Having discussed this topic in length with Julio, I am of course in favour of this change. I believe it satisfies very well both the lore requirement which stated that the goblins and Balrog co-habited but didn't really interact nor willingly aided each other and the game engine requirement of the Balrog only making short appearances because of the processing load he represents for the game as well as being an interesting mechanic. There were a couple of ideas Julio and I disagreed on, I still very much like this concept and fully support it but I just wanted to give my 2 cents:

Shaman of the Bane - I think the Balrog should also be summonable even when you don't have the Shaman, this presents a strategical choice for the player as they can either summon the Balrog as soon as they purchase the power but lose out on a lot of potential damage or wait for the shaman to be recruited. This also applies for when the Shaman is killed, does the player wait to revive him or does he uses the power straight away potentially catching their opponent off guard. I also think the Shaman shouldn't need to level up, because of his status as a tier 4 power, he should come out of the pit at level 10 and with all his abilities unlocked, reducing the micro investment required for what is already an expensive spell.

Hellfire - This tweak is purely a visual change, and also because of my personal belief that orcs have nowhere near enough magical skill to fool a Balrog. But instead of an illusion of Dwarves, the Shaman should summon a large army of Golbins dressed in dwarven rags.

That's all I would personally change, it's not necessarily better it's just a different take on Julio's base concept. I really hope this suggestion gets implemented  [uglybunti]
--- Ende Zitat ---

Hi, Necro, and first of all, thanks for the support!

About your suggestions, I must say I'm interested in both of them.

- The summoning even when the Shaman is not present does add a very interesting strategical choice (more than one, in fact), and it improves on that risk-reward element that I wanted the spell to have. About the Shaman of the Bane coming already at level 10, I feel that's a good idea, but I am torn of it because of having access to every powerful ability at once (though the level 10 one is locked behind a cost). But it is definitely something to consider!

- About the Hellfire suggestion, it makes sense lore-wise and I think it'd actually be fitting (and incredibly humorous) to see the goblins dressed in dwarven rags, since yeah, orc shamans probably wouldn't have the skill to create illusions in the guise of a whole dwarven army that would fool a Balrog, so yeah, it does fit that it'd be actual goblins doing that.

So overall, i like both points of your suggestion (even though I'm still torn on the recruitment at level 10) and I think they might be a good change to the proposal!

About the level 10, would it make it a bit better if the Shaman got recruited at level 5 instead? That way, the Shaman would be easier to get to max level, while not having every powerful ability available from the start.

The_Necromancer0:
Level 5 could be suitable as well, I'm not really sure how to approach the problem. My main concern with having to level him up is that it forces the player to invest more time into a Tier 4 power, which already takes a lot of time to get. Many different approaches could be taken, starting at level 5 is one of them, you could also tweak the Shaman of the Bane so it gives 3 ranks instead of 2, reducing the number of times you have to use that ability. There are many possibilities, it all depends on what other people think, is having to level him up too much to ask? Should he be easier to level up? Should the levelling system be removed entirely? These are all questions that should be considered but to which I don't really have the answer.

Julio229:
Yeah, I can see the problem with the leveling system and there's a lot of choices that could be made in regards to that. I think opinions from other people about it would be nice, since I'm not really sure either :P

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