Bad Medicine is very nearly quite a nice little card. If you drop it on an enemy at full health, it's got good range and quite respectable damage considering that it's poison, and therefor nearly unavoidable. But if you can't cast it on an enemy at full health, it's 2 damage in 2 turns time. I can't find a way to get any good out of the healing. I haven't been in a situation yet where 2 extra hitpoints were useful. The card's limitations feel a little bit too severe, and it just feels flat instead of interesting. I'd love to see it get just a little bit more oomph, to make it a bit more useful and emphasize the two halves of it's nature. One option would be if it did the same healing and damage, but a little bit slower: Heal 2, Poison 1, Duration 4 This would significantly increase it's capacity to be a useful healing card (especially with talents), and have the really nice flavor that you can use it as a heal as long as you keep on using it as a heal for that character, which would really feel like "Bad Medicine". It would also make it a less good nuke, which would be a shame, but not enormously worse, given the way it functions. Otherwise, it could really use an extra point of damage. One would be ideal, but I don't know how to do that, so maybe add an extra duration? Maybe it's just me, but this seems like a card that could be really awesome, a la Misguided Heal, but just isn't quite there.
I agree with Rorre, in its current form I've never been tempted to pick it. And if I've happened to get it because there were other nice cards on the same item, I've never found it very useful. The comparison to Misguided Heal is apt as both are Uncommon and the same nominal quality. Misguided Heal: - Heal 4, which is enough to be useful - 2 damage, - If you're using it on your own character, the damage can be prevented by most of the armor cards - If you're using it on the enemy, the 2 damage happens straight away and can be used to finish a weak enemy. - Range 8 Bad Medicine: - Heal 2, which usually isn't enough to be worth it. (-> MH clearly better) - Poison 2 duration 2 - If you're using it own on your own character, the damage can only be prevented by Resistant Hide, all the other armor cards won't help. (-> MH clearly better) - If you're using it on the enemy, the damage will happen on later turns and to get the full 4 damage you have to use it on an enemy with full health. And unless you're specifically kiting the enemy, the foe will often reach melee and die before suffering the full poison damage. (-> MH better IMO) - Range 6 (-> MH better) So yes, Bad Medicine could certainly use a little improvement.
I love the way you think! Thanks for the tip At the very least, this is a good option to keep cycling through a deck for a Talented Healer. I've wondered if you could get value out of it with enough Traits to cycle it off, but 2 is so little healing that it hasn't seemed worth the trouble. @Zalimen: Thanks for the support, but "It's weaker than another card" isn't a very strong argument against a card. The game needs weak cards and strong cards for several different reasons. This suggestion isn't about Bad Medicine being stronger, it's about it being more interesting.
Well, it depends on whether Bad Medicine is intentionally weaker than Misguided Heal or not. On low level items the two seem to valued the same. For example: Shoddy Healing Token and Green Lotus Root - both are Rare level 1 items, one has 3x Misguided Heal and the other 3x Bad Medicine. Looking at the higher level items does reveal something of a difference since Bad Medicine is only used on one divine item with a talent requirement (Witch's Charm) whereas Misguided Heal can be found on six such items. Whether that can be taken as an indication of something, I'm not sure. But yeah, if Bad Medicine is truly meant to be the weaker one then no problem.
Oh wow, thanks for that analysis. I never thought to compare rarity and value like that. That does imply that they should be similarly powered. I believe you're right, and I withdraw my earlier objection
Hadn't occurred to me - and I shall take advantage! However per my feedback elsewhere Jon has indicated a possible change. You got the like from me for being able to spell voila (not the utterly awful wallah some people use!) Gray
My preferred use for Bad Medicine is to throw it on an opponent I'm not targeting to soften them up a bit, especially since it bypasses armor (though I'm not sure about Resistant Hide).
Arrogant Armour also works to turn it into a Minor Heal. But yes, I don't rate Bad Medicine compared to Misguided Heal.
It was playable early on in beta because items in general where a lot worse but now with the shops i cant see any reason to use it.
