Please make other bosses drop the loot other than the Atavus Bosses. This fight is soooo annoying when you're farming, it takes forever to end... I hate passing 20x to start fighting (without wasting time trying)
I think the change to Hungry Caterpillar might be a larger nerf than intended. It takes away Life's only decent shielding option in late game at a time when criticals aren't dependable, but damage can quickly outpace healing. This will put Life wizards at a huge disadvantage in Khrysalis in a place where they're already going to have a hard time soloing.
Spirit Shield just isn't worth casting in later game at the cost of 3 (usually 2 power pips) pips and Life mages have to spend so much time healing that it's not worth adding shields to your deck space. Life already has so much healing that a shielding alternative surprisingly made up for a lot of weaknesses in an areas where opponents stack a lot of traps or healing is simply being used against you. It was the only counter-play around heal cutters that gets abused HEAVILY.
The increased turns for the heals may help balance some of these problems, but I believe adding an late game version of spirit armor (independent of any healing) may cover this need and you will find that infection will still be frequently used. It may just make the main quest more tolerable in areas where it's use is overwhelming.
I think the change to Hungry Caterpillar might be a larger nerf than intended. It takes away Life's only decent shielding option in late game at a time when criticals aren't dependable, but damage can quickly outpace healing. This will put Life wizards at a huge disadvantage in Khrysalis in a place where they're already going to have a hard time soloing.
Spirit Shield just isn't worth casting in later game at the cost of 3 (usually 2 power pips) pips and Life mages have to spend so much time healing that it's not worth adding shields to your deck space. Life already has so much healing that a shielding alternative surprisingly made up for a lot of weaknesses in an areas where opponents stack a lot of traps or healing is simply being used against you. It was the only counter-play around heal cutters that gets abused HEAVILY.
The increased turns for the heals may help balance some of these problems, but I believe adding an late game version of spirit armor (independent of any healing) may cover this need and you will find that infection will still be frequently used. It may just make the main quest more tolerable in areas where it's use is overwhelming.
The reason Caterpillar lost the absorb is because absorbs shouldn't really be an Life utility, it should be ice's tool. They mitigate damage via wards and that utility belongs on ice's side of the playing field. Absorbs have never really been a good Life utility even if they were originally a core Life identity.
You make an excellent point with spirit armor, it is not worth it and rarely ever has been. The problem with caterpillar is that the absorb post july 2020 audit was basically awarded for free. It paid the tempo cost for doing a second effect, but the 800 value was credited as a 0 pip effect, meaning it was overpowered. As I said earlier, absorbs aren't really that good and this is because they remove a flat value of damage before your own resist or flat damage or even sometimes shields are applied.
On the other hand giving caterpillar a hot is a much better utility because of its ability to scale with stats. A life wizard only needs 45% outgoing to get the same amount of health the absorb originally provided. Then there's also incoming and critical that can scale that value up. So overall, it really is a buff. Continuing the comparison between heals and absorbs I'd also point out that giving life the actual health value behind their resist and defenses means that a heal or hot will 'last' or tank more damage in the long run.
TLDR: Health bar is better at absorbing damage than actual absorbs so the HoT is really a buff.
Please make other bosses drop the loot other than the Atavus Bosses. This fight is soooo annoying when you're farming, it takes forever to end... I hate passing 20x to start fighting (without wasting time trying)
Nevermind, there are ways to unpolymorph earlier and those are fine by me