Vengeance needs a saving roll

I wrote an analysis about Vengeance through my experiences playing it a while ago in Sorcererers Chat and I think some of it is relevant here.

Strengths:

1) Against warriors, you can use it to disengage whenever you want, if you can't take the beating or want to move on to a fresh target. Here is where lies one of the biggest difficulties of playing Vengeance, knowing when to use it as an attack and when to save it. It really depends on the situation so just use your best judgement.

2) Werewolves, they are popular now right? That armor 2 and all those Monstrous Hides make them incredibly difficult to kill. Vengeance has a built in counter. Would you look at that, Silver damage! Helps to annihilate those overeager werewolves that rush in thinking they're invincible.

3) Sets up charges without needing to hide it. Between Diamond Moccasins and Reckless Lycanthropy I have a couple of Brutal Charges. Just walk right up to a warrior, wait for the hit, and line up the charge! Oh, did I mention I usually have two Vengeances in hand at a time? Not to mention some of these maps are made for charges. *cough Ice House cough*

4) Sometimes you can use it to move around warriors after they hit you and backstab them to avoid blocks.

5) Dimensional Traveller/Slippery effect at start of round when you have burning attachments/damaging terrain underneath.

Weaknesses:

1) You can't move unless someone hits you. Sounds obvious, but don't put two Final Swords on your warrior and think that it has tons of mobility. It does not. Once your opponent finds out what you are up to they will just refrain from hitting you and you are stuck in place. I learned this the hard way and so I took out some Vengeances for more mobile weapons.

2) You need to take damage, so you better have some way to heal it up. Me? I use some Howls and a few Greater Heals.

3) It only does 8 damage, same as a Bronze Strong Hack or Bludgeon. Sounds like a job for a buff priest.

4) It has the most power and surprise factor when it is not revealed yet. Once revealed, your opponent will be playing around it as much as they can.

On to the topic of this thread, I think it is fine as is, it is not easily obtainable and I am aware BM as much as possible do not wish to nerf rare cards since people pay big money for the items containing the cards.

If necessary, I think the reduced damage or the only trigger on targeted attacks are the best options. The targeted one even makes thematic sense since if someone directly hits you know who to take revenge on, but if you get injured by some lava on the floor who are you going to take revenge on? Start attacking volcanoes? This also helps to prevent Vengeance from giving people a Slippery like effect at the start of rounds as described in point 5 above, which is probably one of the most devastating things Vengeance can do.

 

Kill them fast strategy still does fine against wizards -- especially wizards who don't own a single Asmod's Telekinetic Chain. You know fully well, a wizard generally relies on potshotting from afar to both whittle down the opp (potshotting) and to survive (from afar). Vengeance ends the survival. (This is of course fine for dwarf wizards' defenses -- often blocks and armors. Even humans can pack blocks. I tried loading up discards on an elf wizard, and the rest of the deck suffers, not to mention Vengeance can pretty much override the elven defenses of movement. Elf Moves away, not Keep. Hit opp? Opp Moves, Keep. Don't hit opp? Lose anyway. Thanks. Also, btw, Memory Loss only comes in handy once the card is oldest; by the time it's oldest, there's often another Vengeance ready to go anyway.)

Talissa's Trident is epic, thus no 5g Bejeweled or anything, but it's not legendary, either. Doesn't take anywhere nearly as long to track one down.

Above I alluded to battles where my party got stuck not being able to play any cards because Vengeance everywhere -- attack someone, die. On the flip side, I've also stacked Vengeance. I even had a Dodge trigger that I ignored and stayed in place just so I could receive the side character's hit and use double Vengeance (for the second time) and knife my real victim, the poor Parry-wielder, in the back (again). Likewise, I've let an opp set me on fire so that I could stalk down a priest 6 spaces away in a tunnel around a bend.

I know (very well meh heh) that Ready To Strike is a nice Vengeance counter, as long as the rolls don't fail, or even as a deterrent, but it's warrior-only, and it's much harder to equip than Vengeance. (Plus, Ready isn't as good in these wide open maps anyway.)

P.S. I didn't vote because I really don't know the best option to keep it a gold card, and due to itemization (lol), its quality really should just stay put. Saving Roll sounds nice, but maybe not quite as gold quality? Maybe? Also, losing Keep does sound like too big a nerf, unfortunately. Move 1 Keep and damage 6-7 might be big enough but not too big -- worth testing anyway perhaps...

 

Another possible nerf for Vengeance would be to have it trigger only for damage above 3 or so.
Not that I think it really needs a nerf. Just giving away an idea I did not see here.

Edit
One more idea. "You may not move away from the attacker". The idea is already present in Attractive card, but I do not know if it has been coded.

 

What he said.
I'd agree that vengeance does not need a nerf at all.

 

P.P.S. I suppose a +2 roll would be stronger than +3 anyway. However, also, yes, taking damage upon undoing it is an interesting thought, once again whether or not gold quality...

P.P.P.S. Only targeted is also an interesting idea, but it's kind of rough that Arcane Burst, Deadly Spark, and Fireball wouldn't trigger, but Gusts Of War would... On the other hand, since Flaxative hit like on a post that reminds us all of intentional power creep in context of this card, I have a feeling this isn't going anywhere. Bring on the 10 damage Nimbles and 17 damage Vengeances.

 

@PKB you raise interesting points that have not yet been discussed...

1. Vengeance stacks. A vengeful warrior can move as far as an Elf without even playing a card.

2. Elf wizards are much harder to play now. I ran an Elf wiz back in December. The wiz was usually dead by round two thanks to being cornered by vengeance. Maybe elf wizards need a buff?

 

/tolkien reads what forums consider broken and equips it quick.
I think inquisitor's badge was meant to be the counter to vengeance but the itemization there leaves something to be desired. Moreover, warriors tend to use vengeance to creep and pin, then they can use other non silver attacks to destroy.
I'm for what I believe to be a small nerf to: only triggers on targeted effects.
This is a relative buff to linear, cone, burst and terrain.
My main trouble with it is vengeance sneaking around my vamps' blocks but nimble strike does that too.
Also vengeance tends to really nerf bashes incidentally. Practically pointless now, unless you're running ready to strike.
I thought that the reason it was so hard to stack sparkling armor was because it was so powerful. But now we've got multiple vengeances per item that deal damage instead of preventing a fraction.

 

My elven werewolves all had 4-6 vengeance and enough movement to get around. The human werewolves were the same.

So, you can have a lot of vengeance + mobility. It's not an either/or.

 

Thanks Rinco for raising some interesting and well-thought out points.

I feel Scarponi made some good arguments for the power level and effective use of vengence. I'm still not convinced it needs a nerf, not yet anyway, I'm happy to play a few more months (don't have that many good vengence items yet), and then if wizards simply cannot beat warriors by then I'll chip in with a vote. So I vote for "why don't we wait a few more months and see how it plays out with the new maps, and possible additional rumoured mitternacht items, thrown into the mix?"

 

Btw, Boo! was probably supposed to be fun counterplay to Vengeance: You can run Dash, and you can hide, but you can't attack me! Ha ha ha! (But we know how that turned out.)

Maybe if Boo! got buffed to some kind of usability again, Vengeance wouldn't feel like such a problem. Maybe. ~shrug~

 

@Christofff, I don't really agree with Scarponi's arguments. So my counter arguments...

I said it is too powerful. Even nerf'd it would still be powerful (as gold cards should be). Just like Sprint, Team! remained powerful after it was recently nerf'd.

Memory Loss is a great card with poor itemisation. But as PKB points out it only works against Vengeance some of the time i.e. it is not a reliable counter.

If the attack is a guaranteed kill then there is no decision. If the opponent is cornered then it is an easy decision. In any case we are at range 1, that next racial movement card is probably enough to keep close to that wizard.

This decision existed long before Vengeance. When the opponent reveals a gold attack card (dangerous) or would gain extra movement (sparkling).

Rather than address this directly I would just point out that most 1800+ players are using Vengeance decks.

The way this reads suggests Blue Manchu intentionally created imbalance. But I don't believe that could be true.

Move 1 and silver quality just might work.

 

Actually the devs did mention that are applying selective power creep.

 

Could we get a link in a spoiler to support this claim?

 

Well, BVD its paying a wizard in a 1/1/1, Mitsuaki also 1/1/1. That is much more balanced that the buffed fireballs used to be, and if i not worng, you where playing 1/1/1.

We can see that most 1800 players are playing wizards in their teams.

Edit: thay are playing vengance indeed, but at the same time they are playing wizards.

 

@ tokien: http://forums.cardhunter.com/threads/moar-wild-speculation.6709/page-28

 

I liked the idea in chat today that it would be non-stackable, as in the max move would be 2 no matter how many vengeance you have in hand. or maybe it can be 'Move 1 for each Vengeance in hand' That would make that damage or save thought process a little harder.

 

How many vengeance's can you really get that fast? Most players have around 2, 3 at most in their deck - if they accumulate the vengeance's while discarding armor and other useful cards throughout the game then good for them, let them move 4.

 

I'm just tired of dying in round 1 because I decided to do a long range Dissolve Armor check.

EDIT: Another match, another wizard dead in round 2 despite doing 30+ damage to an elf warrior. With silver weakness. And all damage from silver.

Vengeance + Greater Heal is near impossible to beat. Ugh.

 

After some more thought, I've no problem with the card being move 2 + armor 1. Because then I can use all the fancy new acid cards for something.

And to answer the earlier question, I tend to see it round 1 or 2 more often than you would think. And most players I see with more than 3, and rarely ever see hesitation from players to use it, because they more likely than not have another ready to go, or know that another is coming soon.

 

I expect acid terrain would become more popular than lava!