Fireball and Savage Curse are clearly a great combination. But what is being left out of the conversation is the strength of Flash Of Agony and savage curse. Two paper cards when combined that have the potential to do 24 damage at any range. Also when you are surrounded by three warriors you have to fireball yourself to hit them. But flash of agony will hit all three without a scratch to your self. I suggest this is an itemisation problem not a mechanics problem. There should be a fireball staff and there should be a flash of agony staff. Having both on the one staff is silly. That's 12 lethal attack cards in the deck. Edit: here is my itemisation fix for both burfft and scatter laser, no change to token cost Searing Pain: 3x able bludgeon instead of 3x flash of agony Bug Zapper 2000: flash of agony instead of fumble
I believe everyone who has posted thus far has good points. Here's my position, wherein I took into account all of the previous opinions. I also provide somewhat a summary of this thread. There are several aspects one must consider in the evaluation of a card and the strategy associated with it. The most relevant (since Card Hunter is ultimately a game) is whether it is fun for the user and for the opponent. It's obviously fun for the user, since the idea of getting more out of your cards by multiplicatively stacking effects is very promising. For the opponent, it is usually very unpleasant, as countering buffed burst must be done by rushing (which is hard to accomplish consistently), by winning the damage race (which is very, very difficult with a half-decent draw from the burst team), or by forcing the burst player to hit inefficiently (which is very difficult in most maps, unfavorable in the context of splitting the team, and very difficult for Burst 2). The fix for this is not quite simple. People (e.g., @Scarponi) have mentioned that Savage Curse's effect only truly becomes worth the cost (card disadvantage) if the user is able to apply the bonus multiplicatively. It is difficult to disagree with this sentiment. But then again, if you can't apply the bonus multiplicatively (or if it is very difficult to do so) it becomes far less fun to play. Scarponi suggested that the buff only be applied to targeted effects, and this is an interesting solution. I have reservations, though, as it makes the card feel underwhelming if it doesn't make the card actually underwhelming when used with anything other than Scatter Laser. People (e.g., @Magic Elves) have suggested that the solution is to change the math with the buff. Reducing the card's duration by 1 actually might not make the build weaker and at the same time it removes the flair of the curse. Changing the card from a simple damage buff to a Frenzy would cement its use as a buff for only burst cards since it would always be underwhelming otherwise (unless played on the opponent as part of a greater plan). The solution doesn't seem to be purely a numbers tweak, especially since it does not alleviate the negative feeling of the opponent. People have suggested that the power of the build comes from or is greatly increased by the items that have the relevant cards. It is difficult to disagree with this; Searing Pain is so perfect for its purpose and there is really no better multi-target staff than it. Skull Of Savage Iljin is also perfect for its purpose, and is completely synergistic with everything. However, if only the items or the cost of the cards were changed then the build is still as annoying without being as reliable. It would be pushed to either a state wherein it's too annoying to face or even play due to how inconsistent it is, or a state wherein it's just not playable because of how inconsistent the build has become. Also, this is difficult to implement as people may have developed attachment to the current items. That being said, some changes could be made. People have suggested that the power comes from how difficult it is to deal with due to burst being able to hit out of line of sight. There's truth in this, but that's an issue (or more like a characteristic) of the Burst class of cards as a whole, not the buffed burst combo which is the actual issue. Burst 2 may be easy to fire, yes, but Fireball is tagged with a high card cost anyway. Radiation Bomb, though, has far less answers as it has great utility (both because it gives difficult to remove, potentially fatal handicaps and because it is on a priest) in exchange for less base damage. @rinco69 has also mentioned that the power comes from the strength of Flash Of Agony - this is something I could definitely agree with. This has led me to the following resolutions: Make Savage Curse deal 1 damage. This will make it harder for one to stack Savage Curse and Radiation Bomb together on the same character while bursting with as many options as using wizards. It also actually directly makes the build riskier. Give Flash of Agony the unbuffable keyword. This new keyword is coming with the release of AI. Perhaps it would make the most sense if it was used on this paper quality card that can potentially get +12 damage at unlimited range from another paper card, neh? It also fits the theme of arcane cards (a solid amount of damage that doesn't get normal increases in damage). As a consequence I would recommend giving Staff Of The Misanthrope a slight boost, though, so it becomes less underwhelming (perhaps improving one Powerful Spark to a Devastating Spark). This would make items like Searing Pain and Supercooled Laser significantly weaker for buffed attack builds (Supercooled Laser pairs too nicely with Cone Of Cold and buffs). However, don't change Fireball and Radiation Bomb. Fireball has a great cost attached to it and a third of the damage is applied next turn anyway. You can't get that many copies of it, and if the only item that gives a good quantity of Fireball gets nerfed (see below) there should be less reason to nerf the gold cards. Radiation Bomb should already take a big hit if Savage Curse was made to deal 1 damage because the ability of keeping both cards on the same priest and working on that reliably gets removed. Also, there will be a change to Purge soon, and perhaps a change to how easily handicaps may be removed. If people try to run a priest buffed burst party with 14 radiation bombs split on two priests, and a buffing priest added to the mix, they will soon find that their attacks deal too little damage and are too far in between. Change the bonus damage of Savage Curse to 3 for untargeted attacks.
Great summary/thoughts @Deepweed. Although you did miss the suggestion from @timeracers that I completely agree with, "Or the attack only gets the buff if they discarded a card". Currently the last card played from the hand gets a buff, even though there was no card discarded. If you have two cards left and one isn't a damaging attack you play that first (Unholy Energy, Telekinesis, etc), then play the damaging attack for the buff. Also reducing the damage to 1 makes the card extremely useful for card denial on enemy warriors. Sure it eliminates savage curse burfft. But this nerf would just make the card overpowered in a different way.
I believe Deepweed means that Savage Curse also does one damage when initially cast. This means that cursing your teammates while one curse is already active on the caster will deal 5 damage to them..
(re: playing Savage Curse while Savagely Cursed) ...deal 5 damage and discard a card... edit ontop edit: Actually, what's funny is, it could deal an explicit 0 damage (like Touch Of Death and Ooze Shove) and still be a pain for a character already Cursed to target an ally. $:^ J (Deal 4 damage plus discard.)
Thank you for mentioning that I had missed the suggestion of Savage Curse not buffing at all if you do not discard a card. I don't think it's a good idea. It would impair the strategy far too much. It will result in not being able to use two damaging attacks when you draw from none at the start of the round, and it also implies that using Inspiration or Inspiring Presence to get a buffed burst draw would not work anymore. I like how it works now in the sense that it gives you +4s at the cost of an extra card, but that you can get a +4 for free when you're down to one last card. Look at Controlled Overswing and Violent Overswing. @snickersimba, I didn't consider your suggestion of only affecting melee because that would make it useless when attaching to an ally and it would kill the fun of the card. I believe the goal at the end of the day is to bring the card to balance and not completely ruin it. Whirlwind Enemies and Nimble Strike are still very, very viable even after their nerf. I think change should go in that direction. A bit off-topic but in connection, I actually think Cooling Laser should deal 6 base damage instead of 7. The idea of hitting for 8-10 damage at 8 range and getting +2s from the same card is pretty absurd, and it's quite clunky in practice.
16 months ago Savage Curse/Fireball/etc was pretty strong and playable but defeinitely not unbeatable. I'm not sure how it's now and not sure how stronger deck got with introduction of Radcannons/etc but I'm still taking a guess that proper combination of offense, purges and armor is deadly for it.
Galv, just fwiw, a priest with enough legendaries can have more Rad Bombs than a wizard's Fireballs, with room to spare for the buffs and draws (a.k.a. the Iljins heh). That's one char able to self-sustain better burfft than a wiz+pri combo; now, get three of them; or, add some mixture of wiz+radbuffpri. Currently, Radiation gives unpurgeable handicaps (although that's to be fixed soon), and of course Trip, Vulnerable, and Squishy are incredible, with very honorable mentions to Fright and Defensiveness, plus a sly nod to Festering Guts. (Others can be useful, too, but are more situational. As it is, Defensiveness is stronger now just due to so many magic-users right now.) Otherwise, yeah, burfft is burfft is burfft, but it appears the complaints have risen more this month due to the rotation's mixture of open spaces and difficult terrain, plus the sole constructed league being a mostly wide open impassable maze -- both apparently fostering a burffter's playground. Meanwhile, I do appreciate that multiple writers in this thread want to see burfft continue to be playable. I like the comparison to rebalancing WWE and Nimble Strike -- undoing the insane carnage while making them still playable, still powerful, and (once again?) fun.
That's half the truth. Radbomb handicaps can currently be removed if you created the handicap and you are playing the purge. Knowing this is important as it is allows you to remove Mad Dog and Festering Guts at the opportune time i.e. after they run at you kamikaze style.
Kind of like your shorthand in the Elven Maneuvers thread, unpurgeable handicaps was just my shorthand for "handicaps whose attachees and attachees' allies cannot purge when the attachees' enemy's Radiation Attack directly attaches said handicaps." $;^ J
Understood. But I thought it was worth mentioning. Being purgeable by the attacker and not the defender gives it that additional benefit.
FWIW, the combination of Bimson's Glowstone Robes and Quellic's Boots on wizards definitely helps quell the damage of buffed bursting wizards. If you have an extra token to spend, upgrade to Vira's Shimmering Robes. Slap some Heartrippers and Copper Zapping Wands on those mages, get some Sprint, Team! on those skills, and rush those mages right up into the face of that buffed bursting wizard that just had a priest give it 4 extra damage to their cards, and 4 extra damage for you to give with the card draw.
Neither fireball nor flash of agony are the problem Its the aforementioned itemization and low token cost Especially, skull of savage iljin
