Can we talk about that, please?

Karanak has 580 WS base, but with him having Frenzy that means he ends up starting every battle with 630 WS. Where does he get that from, again? He hasn't gotten the sword of Khaine stuck between the teeth of one of his heads, does he? That puts him on par or even above many super heavy monster units in the game. Even without frenzy active, he matches the weapon strength of an Exalted Bloodthirster.

Granted, he doesn't quite have the same AP as some super heavy units and duelists, but given the fact he's only 1100 points at base, he hits absurdly hard, especially when you factor in his vigour draining contact effect making enemy armour less effective over time.

Also, his brass collar is overpowered as all hell. Silence either needs to only affect spells and no other active abilities, or it needs limited uptime because paying 200 gold for an effect that can eliminate a characters entire kit beyond their base stats just for being near a unit that moves at 95 speed, has vanguard deployment and can pin down characters is really quite silly.  It's supposed to make him borderline immune to magic, not just allow him to turn off every magical weapon and make everyone within a 55 meter radius forget all of their learned skills and tricks. To be more specific, it's meant to make him immune against "callow" magic, so a highly skilled caster such as a Slaan would still be able to blast him out of the mortal plain if they put their mind to it.

Karanak is supposed to be a mage hunter, not a duelist that can butcher the likes of Grimgor and Kholek. He has no business having 580 weapon strength and he has no business shutting down character skills that aren't spells.

"Fun" first, balancing later.

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Darthplagueis13#4382 wrote:

Can we talk about that, please?

Karanak has 580 WS base, but with him having Frenzy that means he ends up starting every battle with 630 WS. Where does he get that from, again? He hasn't gotten the sword of Khaine stuck between the teeth of one of his heads, does he? That puts him on par or even above many super heavy monster units in the game. Even without frenzy active, he matches the weapon strength of an Exalted Bloodthirster.

Granted, he doesn't quite have the same AP as some super heavy units and duelists, but given the fact he's only 1100 points at base, he hits absurdly hard, especially when you factor in his vigour draining contact effect making enemy armour less effective over time.

Also, his brass collar is overpowered as all hell. Silence either needs to only affect spells and no other active abilities, or it needs limited uptime because paying 200 gold for an effect that can eliminate a characters entire kit beyond their base stats just for being near a unit that moves at 95 speed, has vanguard deployment and can pin down characters is really quite silly.  It's supposed to make him borderline immune to magic, not just allow him to turn off every magical weapon and make everyone within a 55 meter radius forget all of their learned skills and tricks. To be more specific, it's meant to make him immune against "callow" magic, so a highly skilled caster such as a Slaan would still be able to blast him out of the mortal plain if they put their mind to it.

Karanak is supposed to be a mage hunter, not a duelist that can butcher the likes of Grimgor and Kholek. He has no business having 580 weapon strength and he has no business shutting down character skills that aren't spells.

Agreed, Karanak has several incredibly problematic features. He needs a serious WS and stat nerf or a hefty price increase, and perma-silence is inherently unfun to be facing, especially on a 95 speed unit. Can't he just cause 100% miscast chance in an AoE instead, and have the silence ability be tied to his snare or whatever?

His snare should also only be usable on casters. Right now he's a fast moving premier character Hunter with a flesh hound summon to boot, there's very little about him that specifically makes him a magehunter.

If the problem is multiplayer, i think the solution is to increase its price. Personally as someone that only plays in campaign, I like my legendary heroes to be extremaly strong. Actually, i really wanted that all legendary hero would be as strong as ariel and kroak, but i made my peace that won't happen.

About the silence skill, i think ALL silence skills should be ative skills (with duration) and not passive skills, as it should not complete negate other heroes/lords active skills

You forget that all this is bought by Karanak having very low HP for a named monster (or for melee-themed SE in general) and Khorne having no healing. If he didn't hit hard, he'd be all but useless.

I would say make him more expensive rather than weaker. He’s a legendary hero so should he strong and furthermore a legendary hero for khorne, a melee faction.

By all means balance him, make him pricier… just don’t make him a wet noodle

At the moment it is absurdly op, just a price increase is not enough. 

They have to make changes to their skills like silence (totally op, it should be an active skill and not a passive one) and nerf the stats a little, especially WS.

For campaigns, stats don't matter, you can upgrade your skill tree later. It is irrelevant, but in MP it is key.

Right now it is out of control and not balanced.

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TainBoCuailinge#8335 wrote:

You forget that all this is bought by Karanak having very low HP for a named monster (or for melee-themed SE in general) and Khorne having no healing. If he didn't hit hard, he'd be all but useless.

You forget that you can also bring him on the Daemons of Chaos roster, which means you can heal him with a Nurgle Caster.

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victor_chaves_22#6836 wrote:

If the problem is multiplayer, i think the solution is to increase its price. Personally as someone that only plays in campaign, I like my legendary heroes to be extremaly strong. Actually, i really wanted that all legendary hero would be as strong as ariel and kroak, but i made my peace that won't happen.

About the silence skill, i think ALL silence skills should be ative skills (with duration) and not passive skills, as it should not complete negate other heroes/lords active skills

I understand wanting legendary heroes to be strong, but let's be clear here: Ariel is a literal demi-goddess and Kroak has like 7000 years of wizarding experience under his belt and was personally created by the Old Ones.

These two can literally be argued to be the two most powerful magic users in the entire setting if we don't include actual gods. It would be a bit silly if any semi-noteworthy bloke from any faction was as strong as them.

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Darthplagueis13#4382 wrote:

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TainBoCuailinge#8335 wrote:

You forget that all this is bought by Karanak having very low HP for a named monster (or for melee-themed SE in general) and Khorne having no healing. If he didn't hit hard, he'd be all but useless.

You forget that you can also bring him on the Daemons of Chaos roster, which means you can heal him with a Nurgle Caster.

Well, only good then that people constantly whined for DoC to be included in ranked matches. Looks like once again CA should have better stayed their course.

His stats are fine, you get what you pay for. The problem is some of his abilities:

​“Prey of the blood god”: Very toxic ability, unlimited nets and direct damage is a joke that should have never got past QA. It should be limited to 2 uses, reduced range to 50m, duration from 22 to 16s.

“Brass Collar”: The ability doesnt really make sense for the character as a wizard hunter and its extremely annoying to play against with such a large area and with his speed. The range should be reduced range to 35, and should only affect spellcasters

“Endless hunter”: Kind of a bad ability, since almost all units will already be visible in that 50m range. I think it should be increased to 75 or 100m, or make it an active ability with a longer range, maybe 200m​

Just a small QOL change:

“Wounded prey” contact effect Icon is the same as the kislev things in the woods ‘Dark Blood Tainted’ effect. should be changed to something new.

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TainBoCuailinge#8335 wrote:

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Darthplagueis13#4382 wrote:

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TainBoCuailinge#8335 wrote:

You forget that all this is bought by Karanak having very low HP for a named monster (or for melee-themed SE in general) and Khorne having no healing. If he didn't hit hard, he'd be all but useless.

You forget that you can also bring him on the Daemons of Chaos roster, which means you can heal him with a Nurgle Caster.

Well, only good then that people constantly whined for DoC to be included in ranked matches. Looks like once again CA should have better stayed their course.

Yep, now that DOC is in multi they will be used as reasoning to Nerf mono factions units and abilities which I believe was part of the reason they were not in at the start.

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Loupi#8512 wrote:

His stats are fine, you get what you pay for. The problem is some of his abilities:

​“Prey of the blood god”: Very toxic ability, unlimited nets and direct damage is a joke that should have never got past QA. It should be limited to 2 uses, reduced range to 50m, duration from 22 to 16s.

“Brass Collar”: The ability doesnt really make sense for the character as a wizard hunter and its extremely annoying to play against with such a large area and with his speed. The range should be reduced range to 35, and should only affect spellcasters

“Endless hunter”: Kind of a bad ability, since almost all units will already be visible in that 50m range. I think it should be increased to 75 or 100m, or make it an active ability with a longer range, maybe 200m​

Just a small QOL change:

“Wounded prey” contact effect Icon is the same as the kislev things in the woods ‘Dark Blood Tainted’ effect. should be changed to something new.

Good changes here.

It would be much better balanced that way.

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Player#65469 wrote:
Karanak is fine, he dies quite quickly if you actually put your mind to kill him, he might do a lot of damage but he has no hp, the silence aura i dislike in general cause yea, silence aoe is just not fun, and is also not really that impactful a buff for singleplayer, i think the silence would better be a active skills, and leave the aura as magic attack removal

Not sure why people keep on complaining that he's got no hp. He's got 4850 which is a very average amount of health for most lords and heroes in the game, aside from those on monstrous mounts. Additionally, he has 20% phys resist and disables magic attacks, so unless he's under fire from a very small selection of magical ranged units (and there's not that many factions that have ranged units with magic damage), he basically has a 20% ward save on top of that.

Sure, he's not the tankiest character in the game, but he's by no means unusually squishy and he's very fast and hard to catch.