1 hour ago, Onidsen said:If Sword that Was Broken is too powerful, then we probably need to hit Faramir as well, honestly. This is probably entirely a subjective judgement call, given my position on Dain, but I think that both Faramir and Sword that Was Broken are probably ok. Extremely powerful, yes, but not game-breakingly so. Admittedly, Dain doesn't fundamentally break the game either, but he does fundamentally warp the Dwarf trait so that it can't function without him. And it turns out that I'm much more OK with an attachment or an ally like Faramir defining a trait than I am with making a hero practically required to run a good Trait deck.
I'm not sure that STWB is too powerful -- it's just that if STWB's effect is too powerful for non-Aragorns to have for three cost, then it's just as overpowered with Aragorn and needs nerfed. With the other Aragorn items, the main effect is *identical* except for sphere, so just switching the effects would make it conform to his other artifacts. Reducing the main effect (if not on Aragorn) seems to me to be a straight nerf that can only be motivated by the view that STWB is too powerful. But at three cost, it's too expensive to just boost heroes.
I think dwarf swarm is perfectly viable without Dain at the table. Thorin/Nori/Ori is quite strong, I think (especially if you ignore the errata to WANI, etc.) The issue isn't so much that dwarves *need* Dain, as that Dain is just sooo good with a dwarven swarm, and was available before the dwarves had all their tools on the table, that he became a staple. If you switch the release times of Spirit Dain and Leadership Dain, LeDain would be considered bonkers great, but I don't think anyone would be saying that dwarves finally became viable.