Thoughts on the Revised Bad Juju

Among mostly “quality of life” updates in summer 2018 update, we’ve also received one significant PvP change. Kingsisle made a big change to Bad Juju and quite possibly killed the Juju spamming strategy. There is possibility, that Jade Juju’s (Jade Juju isn’t equal to Juju spammer) will still be around, but their number will be significantly lower.

While this is a huge hit to defensive Deaths, it also has an impact on offensive ones. Juju won’t consume wards and charms, so that’s something positive for offensive Deaths. But the 25% total health reduction is bit too brutal.

Death has drains to recover some health, but the whole design of drains is really situational. So for offensive Deaths we have a situational spell (Juju) that works good with another situational spell (drain). There are simply way too many “ifs” in this equation to make Juju part of offensive death strategy.

Of course, Bad Juju was already in pretty bad state pre-update, since it consumed all our blades. As such, in the end, the spell basically went from being situational to being… well, situational. Many Deaths dislike this, but personally I don’t mind it too much. If that’s the price we should pay to keep Jujus out of Arena, then it’s all good for me personally.

Was Death Nerfed Again?

There have been some suggestions in the community to nerf the new Juju. The argument for that is that, Death is already one of the weakest (if not the weakest) PvP school and doesn’t need any further nerfs.

While this is true, Bad Juju reaches a whole different level. The old Juju gave the weakest PvP school ability to use strategy so OP that things become little ridiculous. So yes, while the Death school shouldn’t receive nerfs, Juju deserves an exception.

What should be done to Death is topic for a different article, but one way or another, Bad Juju NEEDS to be nerfed. The best we that can be done is find a fine balance between nerfing and keeping Juju useful.

Most Vocal Change Proposal

If you checked around the community forums, social media and other places, there is one notable proposed changed. It’s to drop the amount of health reduction to something between 10 and 20%. This might indeed work at max levels, but if this is implemented, it has the potential of making almost no difference on Archmage (level 80) level.

The meta at mid-levels is somewhat different than at max. Arch Jade Jujus can face two types of opponents. The first are high level privates, who have the tools to deal with them but lack of knowledge. The other group of opponents they face are lower level warlords, who have knowledge how to beat them, but lack the tools.

Reducing the health reduction of Juju would – combined with the slower meta and high healing boosts – allow arch Jade Jujus to heal back the damage dealt before they would get into the danger zone. As such, the Juju change would completely fail to make any difference at Archmage level.

Proposed Solution #1

We’ve come up with 2 solutions, which would buff Juju for offensive Deaths while simultaneusly keep it nerfed for defensive Deaths. While it might sound bit crazy it’s totally possible.

Our first proposal is based on gradually increasing the percentage of total health taken from you. With each new Juju, more of your health would be taken. The first self hit would deal 10% of total health, the next one 15%, the next one 20%, etc…

With this system, offensive Deaths would have some leeway to land their Juju’s on opponents without causing too much harm to themselves. Gradually increasing self-hits would force players to not recklessly use this spell left and right. Basically, it rewards careful planning and choosing, while on the other hand punishing Juju spammers.

Proposed solution #2

Our second solution is basically an extension to widely proposed suggestion. It involves making a change to Empower at the same time. In this solution, we’d lower the self damage of Juju to 15%, but also apply the same mechanic to Empower.

Empower is a card that usually allows Juju’s to stay on point with their pip game. Giving Empower the same mechanics with 10% of total health reduction wouldn’t make much of a difference to offensive Deaths, but would provide a counter-balance to the Juju nerf.

Earlier we mentioned that 15% self damage on Juju might not be enough to hold back Archmage wizards. Basically, with 15% of both cards, they’d be able to regain control and health by using Empower. Note that a pixie or sprite would be enough to heal back 2 or even more Juju’s. Applying self damage with Empower would allow offensive Deaths to maintain pressure and compensate for the lower Juju self-damage.

Conclusion

Regardless of the final decision, only time will tell how effective the change is. There is always the possibility of loop holes that can be abused and make Jade Juju’s viable again. It’s a back and forth game, where the solution leads to turtles adaptating to the new meta. Turtles are finding weaknesses in each change and adapt. The same should be done by us/KI – we should also find weaknesses in the turtle strategies and make changes accordingly.

But basically, we believe only 15% of self damage would be too low. On the other hand, 25% is too high (because of offensive Deaths), but an acceptable casualty if it’s needed to keep Juju’s under control. And then, there are our two middle options, which would probably be the best option right now (out of 4 stated options in this article).

Which option do you prefer? Let us know about any other creative changes that can be done to Jade Juju

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