So we need to talk about Umbra-

[Spear Deer]

Because they seem to be the worst faction in the game on quite a few axis. And they're bad in a way that doesn't seem easily fixable.

I think there are four major problems with them, that I think we should start some discourse about. But just so we're all on the same page lets outline what defines Umbra as a faction:

-Big, important units with Gorge effects that rely on morsels to empower themselves.

-Energy manipulation in the form of energy multiplication (Kindle), a monopoly on colored, non-spike X Cost cards, and the only player inflicted source of Emberdrain.

-Space manipulation, in the form of adding/removing space to a floor

-They also have a monopoly on Lifesteal, Trample, and Damage Shield.

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Now that that's out of the way, lets talk about their problems. I've identified a few problematic areas. I typed up a ridiculously long wall of text before realizing no one was going to read it, so I'll summarize my points.

-Their starting card is *so much worse* than any other starting card, and it alone is a pretty good reason not to take them. The fact that it has no way to scale, is almost instantly replaced by other morsel cards, and you can't upgrade it with consume to get it out of your deck is crushing.

-Their hero is very weak. While trample boosts impressive base stats, the size requirement at higher levels makes it a questionable choice, and trample is a very inefficient form of damage application- much more so than multistrike or sweep. His gorge tree doesn't scale his health fast enough to make up for his very, very low base HP. This is especially true since he needs to be at the front of the fight to consume morsels. I think architect is maybe their only viable starting option, but considering you can just ascend/descend units to stack a floor, you don't even really need that much more space.

-Morsels get utterly ♥♥♥♥♥♥ by sweep, and spike enemies unless you can find the morsel shield artifact, and they get ran over by harvest enemies either way. This makes them feel pretty infeasible at higher covenant levels, where these enemies run rampant.

-They are the most selfish faction. Most of their spells are morsel related, and most of the creatures (all of their creatures?) are morsel dependent. This makes them hard to take as a secondary faction even if you're just want their energy/space manipulation, because you're left with so little else. This in stark contrast to every other faction, who have units that may synergize with their main faction's strategy well, but can still be useful when you're only splashing into that color for support. Even Remnant, who have a pretty complex design in burnout and reform, are able to field their wickless money makers, or their high burnout, high stat tanks in off color decks.

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What are your thoughts on them? I enjoyed them at lower covenant levels, but at covenant 15, I start with 5 copies of Shadesplitter ( which is a truly hateful amount of deck bloat), and can't go fifteen minutes without running into a boss/enemy/gold bonus that hard counters me.

[Grebloc]

I think they can be an interesting faction and add to the game... but I don't disagree... you're basically forced to take space if you take trample and the hero doesn't get to benefit from the morsels in so doing... emberdrain is fine because you can cast it on morsels who will die anyways, so that isn't really an issue. I do find the morsel boost pales compared to spells for the same effect.

However you missed another factor that sucks with the Umbral... multiplayer... it simply takes longer to cast a spell, get a morsel, cast a morsel, place a morsel... repeat... therefore they are not usable in hell rush... too bad I kept getting them enough I won't even play hell rush.

Also, you cannot consume mod the starting spell to get rid of it, dregs self-cleanse other starting spells can be modded with consume... shadesplitter is stuck as a mediocre non-boostable spell. Truly making it far and away the worst starting spell. (Not a disagreement with you obviously, just more clarification). Maybe if it were base free it would be better... but then it would literally have no modification choices.

[dacarnix]

I'm not sure yet if I agree or disagree with you on their power level. I'm not a high enough Covenant yet to feel like a Monster Train power player or anything.

But I do disagree with some of your conclusions.

Maybe some of that comes from the run I just finished with Umbra. I went full Monstrous (the huge Trample one) and didn't take the size increase gem either time. I took one Ember and one Draw and relied on my size manipulation cards. My champion wouldn't even fit in the train without increasing size first. It sounds bad, but it was super entertaining. When I didn't draw any size manipulation in my opening hand against Seraph, I thought I was done for. But I played it through just to see what would happen. I built up my Lifedrain gorger as best I could, I built up the size the floor of the train where I wanted my champ, and eventually I drew into my champion again. It was a roller coaster of a fight, but it all worked out in the end with Penumbra smashing Seraph to bits.

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I know that's circumstantial, and like I said, I don't call myself an expert, but Umbra is by no means my least-favorite to play. I don't feel hindered by playing them, and I like the interesting choices they add as a secondary faction. I initially thought Remnant/Umbra would be as hard to use as you said in your post, but it's actually crazy fun.

I think all 5 factions are interesting, fun, and take on new light in every possible combination.

Will time tell that Umbra is the weakest and need a buff at some point? Maybe. But I'm having a blast playing them, and they're one of my favorites.

[Bard]

Umbra has my second most wins.

Morselmaster and Morselmaker are really strong. Those combined with the Crucible units (both are good) is pretty much a won game in my experience.

The clan does have a lot of questionably useful mechanics that have too little payoff for the amount of luck they take, but that seems to be the case for most clans. Looking at you Sting cards.

[Spear Deer]

Grebloc a écrit :

Also, you cannot consume mod the starting spell to get rid of it, dregs self-cleanse other starting spells can be modded with consume... shadesplitter is stuck as a mediocre non-boostable spell. Truly making it far and away the worst starting spell. (Not a disagreement with you obviously, just more clarification). Maybe if it were base free it would be better... but then it would literally have no modification choices.

I edited out my mention of the lack of consumability, but that is what makes it the worst card int he game IMO.

[Spear Deer]

Bard a écrit :

Umbra has my second most wins.

Morselmaster and Morselmaker are really strong. Those combined with the Crucible units (both are good) is pretty much a won game in my experience.

The clan does have a lot of questionably useful mechanics that have too little payoff for the amount of luck they take, but that seems to be the case for most clans. Looking at you Sting cards.

What do you do against sweepers? I also found that while tempting, the morsel maker/master is pretty luck dependent. If you get them both before you get your gorge unit, you can't place them without running out of space.

Don't get me wrong, a good morsel deck kicks ass, but its just so fragile. So many things can go wrong. You know who ♥♥♥♥♥ on both of the crucibles? Seraph cleansing beneficial effects. Instant GG. The stealth boss can obliterate the life drain crucible, and the multihit boss can do the same for damage shield. I think Alloyed Construct is one of the best units in the game actually, but he has similar problem of getting gimped by certain common enemies.

[M]

I like playing Umbra, but they can only do so much. It's already obvious at lower covenant levels that Umbra cannot scale well at all. Penumbra is too squishy for a front line 'monstrosity'. Trample means little when winged tanks have 150+ hp. Putting him below pyre room forces you to maintain lower levels, which again relies on morsels. and that's too many mouths to feed.

Realistically speaking, if my primary faction is Umbra and I don't draw Morselmaker/Morselmaster during the early banners I'm mostly screwed. Gem Trove or Grovel could fix this but that's pretty risky. Retch etc are rares with don't come into play until later stages.

Allowing for 3 rather than 2 choices per banner could alleviate this, but it doesn't solve their low power gain speed, both in battle and during a run.

Hellhorned has crazy imp synergy and rage.
Awoken can easily stack 20 spikes then double/triple that damage and deal with anything that hits you.
Stygian? Freeze the hell out of everything.
Remnant actually benefits from units dying and reforming...

Umbra is left with high space requirement, high ember requirement, and their spells simply offset this without actually providing any ACTUAL advantage. If you think about it carefully, without even considering how easily morsels die, just using them means that you've lost space you could have used to put another fighter on the floor.

I really like the concept, but let's be honest. They suck!

If Penumbra Architect upgrade applies to all floors, Glutton gets equal health and the common spells gets buffed they might become viable.

At the present it's actually more headache than fun playing them. The majority of the time I feel like I'm fighting the Umbra rather than the winged while using them.

Sad.

[Spear Deer]

dacarnix a écrit :

I'm not sure yet if I agree or disagree with you on their power level. I'm not a high enough Covenant yet to feel like a Monster Train power player or anything.

But I do disagree with some of your conclusions.

Maybe some of that comes from the run I just finished with Umbra. I went full Monstrous (the huge Trample one) and didn't take the size increase gem either time. I took one Ember and one Draw and relied on my size manipulation cards. My champion wouldn't even fit in the train without increasing size first. It sounds bad, but it was super entertaining. When I didn't draw any size manipulation in my opening hand against Seraph, I thought I was done for. But I played it through just to see what would happen. I built up my Lifedrain gorger as best I could, I built up the size the floor of the train where I wanted my champ, and eventually I drew into my champion again. It was a roller coaster of a fight, but it all worked out in the end with Penumbra smashing Seraph to bits.

-----

I know that's circumstantial, and like I said, I don't call myself an expert, but Umbra is by no means my least-favorite to play. I don't feel hindered by playing them, and I like the interesting choices they add as a secondary faction. I initially thought Remnant/Umbra would be as hard to use as you said in your post, but it's actually crazy fun.

I think all 5 factions are interesting, fun, and take on new light in every possible combination.

Will time tell that Umbra is the weakest and need a buff at some point? Maybe. But I'm having a blast playing them, and they're one of my favorites.

I think Umbra is interesting, and I've had a lot of fun with them too. Really I'm just frustrated because it feels like they aren't strong enough for me to continue to use them and have fun with them. Its interesting that a full monstrous penumbra was able to duke it out with seraph. perhaps I under estimated that upgrade.

And I actually really like Remnant/Umbra, if for no other reason than because the remnant hero is an objectively better morsel muncher than penumbra is when you take his harvest skill.

[Spear Deer]

I agree with basically all of your points, except this one:

Micgoo a écrit :

Realistically speaking, if my primary faction is Umbra and I don't draw Morselmaker/Morselmaster during the early banners I'm mostly screwed. Gem Trove or Grovel could fix this but that's pretty risky. Retch etc are rares with don't come into play until later stages.

I've found that there are actually a ton of ways to generate morsels, usually in the form of a holdover Antumbra Assault or Morsel Miner card.

I will say that I I've had a lot of fun playing Remnant/Umbra with multiple holdover reform cards, cycling increasingly terrifying miner morsels. You can actually ramp damage fast enough if you're using Miner Morsels, its just hard to get an engine that generates them fast enough. But it feels pretty good to be spawning multiple 25/25 morsels onto the field at a time each turn.

That being said, this strategy is utterly ♥♥♥♥♥♥ if you ever have to use the top floor, because ya know, stuns.

[itssirtou]

The HERO is the worst class hero in the game. As a support class it works out well.

As an aside, I think Trample is a trap, it's not useful to the player. The only time squishy frontliners make it to the front are Wiltwings in the late game and zerg rushes.

I think Architect 1 Feeder 2 is the way to go as it solves all the problems the hero has, simply feed it to squish the tank and use other forms of wave or backline clear like any other class. The issue with this is he STILL needs to be frontline and is even SQUISHIER than not taking the Trample path!

Alternatively just go Architect 3 and use him as a bonus unit.

[Zdan]

worst faction? lol, every time i go up a level is with Umbra

[Grebloc]

Ok, I *like* Umbra a lot, the concept is fun. I just don't think they scale well at all. I see a lot of "I like Umbra so therefore they don't suck" comments. I understand, I personally feel the same way about melting remnants... but then again EVERY time I play them I go for molded with holdover, (or other spells that remold), which kind of shows that I feel 75% of their stuff is garbage. *IF* you get morsel miners, and *IF* you get the morsel duplicator unit, and *IF* you have enough space to play your hero, the duplicator, and TWO (4 after doubling) morsels, he can scale fast... of course you need card draws, size, and ember... umm too bad that is impossible without getting specific trinkets.... so *IF* you were able to choose your cards Umbra would be broken....

The overgorger is a great unit, but what other Umbra unit is worth a damn... the one that does 5 damage when gorging is ok.. but the units have already hit you, or you need the feed card... the one with damage shield is nice as a wall, but not much else... and as mentioned before, multistrike and sweep kill your minions without you getting any benefit and barely slow the enemies down...

I like the concept, but please explain to me how it compares to the sheer damage of Hellhorns, the staggering defense and retaliation of Awakened, the sheer damage stacking of Stygian guard (thru either frostbite or spell weakness) or the recursive growth of the Remnants?

I really want to like the Umbra, I just don't see how they stack... perhaps it is my flaw. Also, do you just purge all 5 shadesplitters? Because I cannot see using them.

My best Umbra runs were with the damage shielded minions so they lived long enough to be snacked upon, and even then the Umbra are the only clan I've never won with as the primary (I have won allied games)

[Spear Deer]

⎛⎝ itsZdan ⎠⎞ a écrit :

worst faction? lol, every time i go up a level is with Umbra

At what covenant level? I really enjoyed them until I hit covenant 12-15.

[Spear Deer]

Grebloc a écrit :

I really want to like the Umbra, I just don't see how they stack... perhaps it is my flaw. Also, do you just purge all 5 shadesplitters? Because I cannot see using them.

Yes. You purge all of them. Occasionally I will keep one, so I can use it and then antumbra assault the morsel to make real morsels.

[Bard]

Spear Deer a écrit :

Bard a écrit :

Umbra has my second most wins.

Morselmaster and Morselmaker are really strong. Those combined with the Crucible units (both are good) is pretty much a won game in my experience.

The clan does have a lot of questionably useful mechanics that have too little payoff for the amount of luck they take, but that seems to be the case for most clans. Looking at you Sting cards.

What do you do against sweepers? I also found that while tempting, the morsel maker/master is pretty luck dependent. If you get them both before you get your gorge unit, you can't place them without running out of space.

Health upgrades on the morselmaker/master, various ascend/descend manipulation, quick/trample on the crucible. Umbra also has access to quite a few damage shields. I usually set the whole thing up on the top level, so the rooted and dazed artifacts also help keep the setup stable long enough to build up.

Draw order is a big deal, I'll admit to that. Sometimes you'll end up having to loop through to get them in the right order. I've lost a few runs because it took too long to get the gears moving.

[AdApt*]

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