Please first read the posts then complain about something. This thread is not about asking to buff Norns. It’s about asking to FIX her. Her special skill DOES NOT WORK when she is in defense.
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This isn’t the first time that a boss has turned to a playable hero, but none of those heroes had any problem with their special skills.
Kage, Mitsuko, Ursena, and Poseidon are examples that have all been enemy bosses then became a playable hero, and unlike Norns, their special skill works well in both defense and offense.
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If they just made her fast instead of average, I think she’d be viable. Her SS % is lower than Drake’s and White Rabbit’s, and the second half of her skill is worse than either blind or defense down, so I don’t think she’d be OP.
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Norns needs a buff, 100% agree.
yes on defense Norns debuff is meaningless and her best special skill is reducing the enemies mana when she dies. But even on offense she is lackluster. White rabbit and Drake are fast mana, with similar 3 wide AoE damage and better debuffs in either offense or defense.
Norns is a tile damage hero so pairing her on offense with gazelle plus another yellow plus two dark heroes would probably be pretty effective. But I dont have gazelle and I’m guessing very few players have both gazelle and norns. And considering the very excellent pairings of jackal + any number of yellow snipers, I would consider a tile damage focused yellow team a “2nd string” option.
Defensive heroes can be average mana and 3 wide AoE but on offense for me they really need to be fast to be usable. If you are stacking Yellow on offense you’re likely going against a purple tank. If you get 4(ish) matches to charge an average speed hero the tank is likely gone just due to tile damage and a 3-wide special is only 2/3 as effective as designed. I have a lot of ideas about how Norns should be completely overhauled, but if I ever pulled Gazelle I could see just changing Norns’ debuff to 5 wide AoE could be potentially a good change.
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@Petri. Why is the lack of functionality regarding the special skill on defense not mentioned on the hero card? I just faced Norns on a map stage. They hit joon with a special skill hit so he is now weak against yellow. In the ensuing hits, joon did not take more damage from the slash attacks or special attacks from the surrounding yellow heroes. So Norns special skill is effectively useless on defense and that is intended. Am I correct in that statement? And if so, shouldn’t the card say only applies to offensive special skills and damage?
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I’m pretty sure that elemental debuff does effect slash attacks on defense already. Back in the dual panther days I remember her slashes getting very aggressive. Are you 100% on this?
Went and tested it (so hard to find an eve, panther or frida these days), the troop was mana.
A post from the Norns in defense thread courtesy of @amessofamind. Shows increase from slash attack on an elemental defense debuff opponent.
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This Norns card is probably one of a dozen or more hero special descriptions where additional clarity would help.
You are correct that elemental defense reduction (panther, frida, evelyn, etc) does increase the damage of slash hits and special skills from all enemy defenders of the debuffed element. Otherwise a normal defending enemy slash hit is a “colorless” attack. Norns’ special is different than elemental reduction, her card uses the terminology that the enemy “becomes weak against”. This invokes the weak/strong relationship of Tile damage. So to me, this is consistent terminology- but still confusing. Even just adding the word “tile damage” to Norns’s card would help (e.g. “becomes weak against tile damage from the element they are normally strong against […]”
Or change her so that it is as you assumed- a true elemental defense reduction based upon color of enemy hit. She would be massively more useful in that case.
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You hit it right on the head. That’s exactly the ambiguity I would like to have clarification. Because immediately after it says “becomes weak against” it uses the word element as well.
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So after a lot of thinking about this, I do believe I understand the reasoning behind their special doing nothing on defense. While it does cause an elemental change, it is not an elemental debuff like frida or Evelyn would give. So without that, the slash attacks from the defense are essentially color blind and are just doing damage based on the standard damage calculation. It helps to think of it in another way. Say hypothetically she made all allies strong against the color they were normally weak against. This wouldn’t give extra elemental protection like Kashrek does, it would just give the standard weak tile protection. It’s a shame they work this way and for the record I don’t like it, but in this case it wouldn’t be an issue to fix. It would become a buff to change them. The wording on the card does bring cause for confusion but when you get down to the nuts and bolts of it, it is “accurate”. Thanks @Dorkus for the assistance in helping me get a grasp on it.
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Norns should have a speed increase, or higher attack at average speed. Comparing her to heroes like Drake Fong seems like she would be more useable on the gtv team.
1 vote to … fix Norns, maybe a little blindness. i like it in attack on a 3 + 1 and norns. 
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I think Norns should include Slash damage in the 2nd part of her special…it wouldn’t be a huge ask as it took me about 20 mins of talking to @Guvnor to finally understand that on defense she only does the direct damage… Now she can do a decent Amount of damage with the 280% but if it included slash attack’s she’d shine on both offense and defense… regardless I’m gonna Max her over justice… but I think there should be a poll to see if ppl want it to include Slash attack’s as well
The description of her special doesn’t say “just defensively weak” as it shows When you use it… It’s a unique one to say the least but it would truly be a 5* special if included slash damage… just my 2¢
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It would be better if enemy “tiles” were affected by Norns. Slash damage fine, but affecting enemy tiles makes her at least viable as a defensive hero. Affecting slash damage still just implies that she is only good on “attacking” teams. Slash damage should be replaced by weakening enemy tiles.
Weakening enemy tiles really puts an attacker in a position to think very strategically about how they want to attack a defending team with Norns on it.
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Norns needs to be fixed asap her effect is practically moot on defense fix norns this is something we should really be talking about
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Maybe ger special should affect the tiles when she is on defense
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Agreed
20 characters
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I have written lots about Norns in other threads, I will copy one of the smaller pieces I’ve written here.
If you are attacking Norns on def. and you highlight the hero to see what her power is, it reads very clearly, “The target and nearby enemies become weak against the element they are strong against for 4 turns.”
If I was to attack Norns on def. I would read this that whoever she casts her power on from my team, their tile damage that would normally be strong against opposing colours would now become weak.
I hope SG will seriously look at Norns. Her power, as written, literally doesn’t work on defense.
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I have Norns and she is great on offense.
But on defense she isn’t usable at all.
When I heard about her last buff, I got excited.
But when I saw it…
A proper buff, should be a fix to her ability or give her something else (like cleanse all allies or +mana regeneration, etc…), because like a lot of people already said, her ability does NOTHING on defense.
Other character’s abilities make less on defense or attack, but as long as i remember, no other does NOTHING like hers
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Maybe it doesn’t work like this:
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That if a hero is the greatest defensive tank in the game, it is also terrible on attack squads.
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And if it is the greatest offensive hero ever, it is absolutely the worst hero to put in your defense.
And the balance moves back and forth for everything in between. The more versatile a hero is, the less OP it is for either attack or defense.
Maybe it does work this way? 
If it doesn’t… it should!
My opinion about Norns is that she is the worst hero to put in your defense. I would much rather have Margaret in my defense than Norns. Any other hero will deliver something. Either an effect or greater damage. Or both!
And for all the people who say how great she is on attack. I feel this is misleading.
Norns is good on attack. Ok…
She is unique. Which the game desperately needs.
And very far from being the greatest attack weapon in the game…
If Norns is an attack weapon…Holy is loaded with much better options!
Which, makes the hero with OP artwork:
Extraordinarily lackluster…
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Well said, SG blew it with Norns.
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