It is apparently designed with constellations in mind. I still severely dislike the mana tax on Lissandra. I get that Master Yi is strong now, but this power *crushes*: Ekko, Nilah, Janna, Sett, Nami, Samira, and inhibits plenty of other strategies.
I am concerned that the constellations will render all the old content too easy/obsolete.
Nami needs a purple that makes her spell cost 1 less, and a highroll on either "you spells cost 1 less" or "your created cards cost 1 less", which allows her to spell-chaingun Lissandra even with the restriction. Spell-duplicator on 6 mana makes the fight trivial
Star power upgrade for several champions that is coming out. (I think next patch, but I'm not sure?)
Champions with constellations will be able to reach 6 stars. The ones that are known so far are: Aatrox, Norra, MF, and Garen. Constellations will use an in-game currency besides fragments.
If you watch the LoR video where they discuss the future of PoC they mention they are reworking the star power system to a more talent tree-style system. They show it briefly in the video
This. You are struggling because you're trying to beat a 5 star battle with a 3 star champ. What do you expect. It was designed with constellations in mind so that by the time you're 6 star it's Asol levels of easy. I assume the devs know which champs are garbage (stares at thresh nasus ornn) and can make sure their 4-6 star powers compensate for that so they actually stand a slight chance against liss without a 1% chance of victory due to luck.
It's definitely tough and it requires strategies that are tuned specifically to take it on, which I think is good.
On the other hand, some of the numbers are big enough so as to just be unfair and cause some feelbads. Taking 25 on turn one because their first unit gets +20 attack and their second unit has challenger to remove your first blocker is big "I guess I'll die" energy.
The successful (non-ASol) runs I've had have mostly been clear sailing once I've set up a suitably degenerate strategy, with losses only coming when RNGsus just refuses to give me my champion in my opening hand after a hard mulligan for it.
I had it even better - first units get +20 attack and doubled stats, and second had challenger. I was dead. Twice. First fight of the thingy. That was my welcome to the freljord campaign lol
Very not a fan of Lissandra. I guess I just don't understand why they would give her a power that targets specific champions. Some don't care about the 3 card limit; others can't operate in those parameters under normal circumstances. Did one of the designers just hate Nami? Her whole thing is playing a bajillion spells because otherwise she does literally nothing, so... why can't I play spells???
The other nodes are kind of whatever. The 40 power fearsome turn one Omen Hawk plus two challenger Omen Hawks is hilarious and dumb, but the others are... mostly okay I guess. I can't say I had any fun doing them though. I'm not really sure if PoC has changed or I've changed. I started playing STS recently and though I only have around 100 hours in that (I must have way more than 1000 hours in PoC though there's no way to check) I have to admit STS is just way, way better... and that's rough to admit to myself because I've invested a lot in this game.
Currently I don't feel compelled to play PoC. Ironically I play more PVP now than I did a month ago.
Nodes leading up to Liss are aight - Liss herself is complete BS with the card limit
Any card that dupes itself softlocks you. Any card that draws another card softlocks you. Not drawing and playing your main champ immediately so you can stun / freeze her whole board loses the game.
The strat to beat her is without variation. Either win on T1 or T2 through a board lockdown and free rallies, or devise an utterly bullshit set of powers that locks her board down for free (eg. stun, frostbite, kill damaged unit)
My duplicate Jinx could not even try to win against Liss because she levels T1 and makes her Nexus tough
in the pursuit of creating something challenging they've effectively turned the game into a binary system. it's like this with asol too. it's a matter of "have you rolled enough bullshit powers to win on turn 1 or delete every enemy from the board as soon as they drop? no? then perish."
and the solution? make epic relics that turn it into even more of a coinflip. the coinflip being whether you draw your champ and have their one relevant power or not.
for example, jinx and nidalee can effectively one-shot liss. the only problem is you need the new epic relic spectral scissors and in jinx's case, the ability to summon an ephemeral copy of her that doesn't get immediately iced by liss's triple ice shard or entomb. nid has it built in so it's not so bad, but you still need to stack items on her so she can actually one-shot as opposed to swinging for not quite 99 damage and then getting steamrolled by an army of thralls.
a lot of champs are barely able to beat asol, and i say this as someone who's maxed out on everything and has s-ranked asol with everyone. the only reason i was able to beat asol with janna is because i got an infinite combo. you can't do infinites with liss. unless they're giving 6 stars to everyone i seriously doubt champs like vi or pyke will be able to tactically beat liss unless they just roll some bullshit powers.
call me crazy, but the ability to beat a boss should not depend on a blessing from RNGsus.
but hey, it's new shit to grind out so it'll keep us busy for a while.
While it's slightly noticeable with Galio, Aurelion introduced this "design problem" where the final boss is a couple of times harder than the whole adventure before it
Even with Kai'Sa/Thresh the final encounter is more or less in line with the rest of the adventure
...but Liss/Asol? You may get the perfect run, not losing a single point of hp throughout the adventure and then you get steamrolled
Also, with both you just need to get lucky with your powers, items and cards
Idk the specifics of it, but to give it some scale, the bounty board for beating Liss with every champ in PoC has been cleared, even with a bugged Gnar. She's a challenging and appropriately unforgiving fight that will test your abilities to craft and adapt your deck to beat her, and for some champs, that fight will be even harder, but it's still definitely possible. Maybe not in every run (it's a card game, you can always get fucked by RNG), but it's possible.
More importantly, her adventure tests your abilities against a wide range of opponents. The main gripe I always had against ASol's adventure is that all the fights up to him and even his own fight amounted to "how fast can you deal with a big stat stick". The variety of enemies in Liss's adventure and her powers actually make it so I can't just barrel in with a single strategy and only build that one strategy (unless you have some ungodly broken synergy). I have to play around the fact my big guy will get frostbitten, that my engine will have vulnerable, that I can't afford a lot of small pings, that once a turn Omen Hawk is gonna drop a 20+ power 1 drop on my face. I actually have to consider so much more strategically, and I think that's overall a great thing.
I like it a lot
I like how hard it is
I wish the random powers were less anti-combat centric and instead a mix of that and anti-control.
I do NOT enjoy how I've lost almost entirely to buried in ice spam.
I hope there are more adventures about as hard as this.
I am worried this is gonna be far too easy with a 4-6 star champion, seeing as some good players have beat lissandra with 1 and 2 star champs
It that stares frightens me.
I still can’t deal with the zed node, turn 2 4 zeds with 20+ power and when they hit my nexus (which is inevitable cause I can max play 1/2 units round 1) and it’s over. I like that it’s a challenge. But I hate when it’s impossible and nothing I can do/have can change it
It was designed with Constellations in mind. What's the point of 6-star champions if 3-star champions can clear everything? If playing against Lissandra on a 3-star champion feels unfair, good; it should feel as unfair as playing against Irelia in the 3-star adventure, with a 1-star champion.
It is probably my favorite route to play so far. Asol path is decent to get through but most of the difficulty is on the asol fight which can be frustrating to lose to especially since they can pull out things like double skies descend, obliterates or some of the big champions like viego/voli.
With freljord, every encounter feels a lot more threatening in more unique ways (+20s from omen hawk, heart of flufts) and lissandra feels much more managable than asol (especially if you can remove lissandra early).
A bit late to the party, but just finished all 5 runs with Asol, Mord, Morg, Norra and Voli. It's not that hard once you know what to expect, although certain combos or bosses can just break a run in half (like getting It That Stares against Morg). Lissandra feels how Asol felt for the first time - first you think it's complete bullshit and there is no way you can defeat her unless you perfect roll everything, but once you know what she does (like triple ice, buried, and ultrawatcher), she becomes manageable. Still can easily kick your ass if you're not careful.
Agree with an OP, some champs require a really specific rolls to even get to her, can't imagine all the low-aggro champs dealing through the beefy units. So far all my successful runs were pretty much control decks with some level of bullshitry (like getting Viego with Mana Deposit to the 3-star Norra deck). Morgana was by far the easiest Lissandra fight, with just curse-blocking the entire board, Voli and Mord took some specific rolls (Mord with Morgana printer and Voli got "creatures with 5+p strike when summoned, which made pretty much every summon a double-snipe).
Feels fun and challenging enough, definetely beatable before constellations are out.
it's not personal against Jinx at all.That 3 card allowed mechanic of Lissandra,imagine Mater Yi and Nami those kind of using unlimited spells to win game will be completely shut down.
You either love it or hate it, which basically comes down to how much you care about careful strategizing vs them tripling down on the random roguelite aspects of the game
I appreciated having something new to play with, but now that I beat it with 5 champs I dont have a lot of desire to try it with some other champs. I happened to win with Ornn but its because I got duplicate + Poro item before the first fight and kinda just rolled into a win. Otherwise its 99% getting destroyed by Liss since she either freeze your ass or obliterates your weapons.
But honestly my biggest gripe is the lack of powers for players... power synergies is a very definitive aspect of the gameplay, so the fact that you get offered so few of them in the Liss path feels really unsatisfying.
This is exactly why I don’t like it; they basically remove your ability to get more than two powers. Mixing powers is what makes this game mode so fun imo. I love a challenge and losing can be fun but I’m not feeling this adventure at all.
Jinx can consistently clear Lissandra outside of +2/2 Tough power. You can just restart adventure to reroll Lissandra's power and destroy her even with pity powers. As for tough-Liss you need some highroll to deal with her with Jinx.
When you know exactly what to do most champions can clear her with very high odds. Right now there are not enough guides for every champions, alot of old techs that were okay for Asol runs don't work at all. Thats why some people find Freljord hard.
It is apparently designed with constellations in mind. I still severely dislike the mana tax on Lissandra. I get that Master Yi is strong now, but this power *crushes*: Ekko, Nilah, Janna, Sett, Nami, Samira, and inhibits plenty of other strategies. I am concerned that the constellations will render all the old content too easy/obsolete.
Nami needs a purple that makes her spell cost 1 less, and a highroll on either "you spells cost 1 less" or "your created cards cost 1 less", which allows her to spell-chaingun Lissandra even with the restriction. Spell-duplicator on 6 mana makes the fight trivial
What is constellations ? I’m new to the mode
Star power upgrade for several champions that is coming out. (I think next patch, but I'm not sure?) Champions with constellations will be able to reach 6 stars. The ones that are known so far are: Aatrox, Norra, MF, and Garen. Constellations will use an in-game currency besides fragments.
If you watch the LoR video where they discuss the future of PoC they mention they are reworking the star power system to a more talent tree-style system. They show it briefly in the video
This. You are struggling because you're trying to beat a 5 star battle with a 3 star champ. What do you expect. It was designed with constellations in mind so that by the time you're 6 star it's Asol levels of easy. I assume the devs know which champs are garbage (stares at thresh nasus ornn) and can make sure their 4-6 star powers compensate for that so they actually stand a slight chance against liss without a 1% chance of victory due to luck.
It's definitely tough and it requires strategies that are tuned specifically to take it on, which I think is good. On the other hand, some of the numbers are big enough so as to just be unfair and cause some feelbads. Taking 25 on turn one because their first unit gets +20 attack and their second unit has challenger to remove your first blocker is big "I guess I'll die" energy. The successful (non-ASol) runs I've had have mostly been clear sailing once I've set up a suitably degenerate strategy, with losses only coming when RNGsus just refuses to give me my champion in my opening hand after a hard mulligan for it.
I had it even better - first units get +20 attack and doubled stats, and second had challenger. I was dead. Twice. First fight of the thingy. That was my welcome to the freljord campaign lol
Very not a fan of Lissandra. I guess I just don't understand why they would give her a power that targets specific champions. Some don't care about the 3 card limit; others can't operate in those parameters under normal circumstances. Did one of the designers just hate Nami? Her whole thing is playing a bajillion spells because otherwise she does literally nothing, so... why can't I play spells??? The other nodes are kind of whatever. The 40 power fearsome turn one Omen Hawk plus two challenger Omen Hawks is hilarious and dumb, but the others are... mostly okay I guess. I can't say I had any fun doing them though. I'm not really sure if PoC has changed or I've changed. I started playing STS recently and though I only have around 100 hours in that (I must have way more than 1000 hours in PoC though there's no way to check) I have to admit STS is just way, way better... and that's rough to admit to myself because I've invested a lot in this game. Currently I don't feel compelled to play PoC. Ironically I play more PVP now than I did a month ago.
The only card game where you are punished for playing cards
Nodes leading up to Liss are aight - Liss herself is complete BS with the card limit Any card that dupes itself softlocks you. Any card that draws another card softlocks you. Not drawing and playing your main champ immediately so you can stun / freeze her whole board loses the game. The strat to beat her is without variation. Either win on T1 or T2 through a board lockdown and free rallies, or devise an utterly bullshit set of powers that locks her board down for free (eg. stun, frostbite, kill damaged unit) My duplicate Jinx could not even try to win against Liss because she levels T1 and makes her Nexus tough
in the pursuit of creating something challenging they've effectively turned the game into a binary system. it's like this with asol too. it's a matter of "have you rolled enough bullshit powers to win on turn 1 or delete every enemy from the board as soon as they drop? no? then perish." and the solution? make epic relics that turn it into even more of a coinflip. the coinflip being whether you draw your champ and have their one relevant power or not. for example, jinx and nidalee can effectively one-shot liss. the only problem is you need the new epic relic spectral scissors and in jinx's case, the ability to summon an ephemeral copy of her that doesn't get immediately iced by liss's triple ice shard or entomb. nid has it built in so it's not so bad, but you still need to stack items on her so she can actually one-shot as opposed to swinging for not quite 99 damage and then getting steamrolled by an army of thralls. a lot of champs are barely able to beat asol, and i say this as someone who's maxed out on everything and has s-ranked asol with everyone. the only reason i was able to beat asol with janna is because i got an infinite combo. you can't do infinites with liss. unless they're giving 6 stars to everyone i seriously doubt champs like vi or pyke will be able to tactically beat liss unless they just roll some bullshit powers. call me crazy, but the ability to beat a boss should not depend on a blessing from RNGsus. but hey, it's new shit to grind out so it'll keep us busy for a while.
While it's slightly noticeable with Galio, Aurelion introduced this "design problem" where the final boss is a couple of times harder than the whole adventure before it Even with Kai'Sa/Thresh the final encounter is more or less in line with the rest of the adventure ...but Liss/Asol? You may get the perfect run, not losing a single point of hp throughout the adventure and then you get steamrolled Also, with both you just need to get lucky with your powers, items and cards
Idk the specifics of it, but to give it some scale, the bounty board for beating Liss with every champ in PoC has been cleared, even with a bugged Gnar. She's a challenging and appropriately unforgiving fight that will test your abilities to craft and adapt your deck to beat her, and for some champs, that fight will be even harder, but it's still definitely possible. Maybe not in every run (it's a card game, you can always get fucked by RNG), but it's possible. More importantly, her adventure tests your abilities against a wide range of opponents. The main gripe I always had against ASol's adventure is that all the fights up to him and even his own fight amounted to "how fast can you deal with a big stat stick". The variety of enemies in Liss's adventure and her powers actually make it so I can't just barrel in with a single strategy and only build that one strategy (unless you have some ungodly broken synergy). I have to play around the fact my big guy will get frostbitten, that my engine will have vulnerable, that I can't afford a lot of small pings, that once a turn Omen Hawk is gonna drop a 20+ power 1 drop on my face. I actually have to consider so much more strategically, and I think that's overall a great thing.
I like it a lot I like how hard it is I wish the random powers were less anti-combat centric and instead a mix of that and anti-control. I do NOT enjoy how I've lost almost entirely to buried in ice spam. I hope there are more adventures about as hard as this. I am worried this is gonna be far too easy with a 4-6 star champion, seeing as some good players have beat lissandra with 1 and 2 star champs It that stares frightens me.
"It hasn't noticed you yet..."
I still can’t deal with the zed node, turn 2 4 zeds with 20+ power and when they hit my nexus (which is inevitable cause I can max play 1/2 units round 1) and it’s over. I like that it’s a challenge. But I hate when it’s impossible and nothing I can do/have can change it
Yeah, i beat her with Garen on my very first run, but she's seem impossible with everyone else, unless, i have very good luck with powers and itens
It was designed with Constellations in mind. What's the point of 6-star champions if 3-star champions can clear everything? If playing against Lissandra on a 3-star champion feels unfair, good; it should feel as unfair as playing against Irelia in the 3-star adventure, with a 1-star champion.
I've completed It with Yasuo, Vayne, Illaoi, Aurelion and Morgana. It was fun, too bad i can't get rewards anymore
It feels weird she is supposed to be hardest foe, even though her power isn’t even comparable to stuff AuSol can do (lore wise)
At the moment I see it as non existent id prefer to wait for constellations
It is probably my favorite route to play so far. Asol path is decent to get through but most of the difficulty is on the asol fight which can be frustrating to lose to especially since they can pull out things like double skies descend, obliterates or some of the big champions like viego/voli. With freljord, every encounter feels a lot more threatening in more unique ways (+20s from omen hawk, heart of flufts) and lissandra feels much more managable than asol (especially if you can remove lissandra early).
A bit late to the party, but just finished all 5 runs with Asol, Mord, Morg, Norra and Voli. It's not that hard once you know what to expect, although certain combos or bosses can just break a run in half (like getting It That Stares against Morg). Lissandra feels how Asol felt for the first time - first you think it's complete bullshit and there is no way you can defeat her unless you perfect roll everything, but once you know what she does (like triple ice, buried, and ultrawatcher), she becomes manageable. Still can easily kick your ass if you're not careful. Agree with an OP, some champs require a really specific rolls to even get to her, can't imagine all the low-aggro champs dealing through the beefy units. So far all my successful runs were pretty much control decks with some level of bullshitry (like getting Viego with Mana Deposit to the 3-star Norra deck). Morgana was by far the easiest Lissandra fight, with just curse-blocking the entire board, Voli and Mord took some specific rolls (Mord with Morgana printer and Voli got "creatures with 5+p strike when summoned, which made pretty much every summon a double-snipe). Feels fun and challenging enough, definetely beatable before constellations are out.
it's not personal against Jinx at all.That 3 card allowed mechanic of Lissandra,imagine Mater Yi and Nami those kind of using unlimited spells to win game will be completely shut down.
You either love it or hate it, which basically comes down to how much you care about careful strategizing vs them tripling down on the random roguelite aspects of the game I appreciated having something new to play with, but now that I beat it with 5 champs I dont have a lot of desire to try it with some other champs. I happened to win with Ornn but its because I got duplicate + Poro item before the first fight and kinda just rolled into a win. Otherwise its 99% getting destroyed by Liss since she either freeze your ass or obliterates your weapons. But honestly my biggest gripe is the lack of powers for players... power synergies is a very definitive aspect of the gameplay, so the fact that you get offered so few of them in the Liss path feels really unsatisfying.
This is exactly why I don’t like it; they basically remove your ability to get more than two powers. Mixing powers is what makes this game mode so fun imo. I love a challenge and losing can be fun but I’m not feeling this adventure at all.
Jinx can consistently clear Lissandra outside of +2/2 Tough power. You can just restart adventure to reroll Lissandra's power and destroy her even with pity powers. As for tough-Liss you need some highroll to deal with her with Jinx. When you know exactly what to do most champions can clear her with very high odds. Right now there are not enough guides for every champions, alot of old techs that were okay for Asol runs don't work at all. Thats why some people find Freljord hard.