All no talent elf skills punishing

[Edit] All but one... (Untrained Footwork )

Of the elf skills with no talent point cost have drawbacks:

Untrained Insight has Cowardly
Novice Insight has Cowardly
Untrained Evasion has Superstitious
Apprentice Evasion has Loner
Wariness has Loner

Each of these drawbacks are pretty darn painful for an elf, even more so for a low level elf. Potentially unavoidable damage, or discarding all attacks or the entire hand (fairly likely in SP) for one or more rounds. In comparison the Human skills without talent points only have one with a drawback, which is Vulnerable, Dwarf skills at this level do not have any drawbacks (which has it's own issues).

Is this to push people to pay to use higher tier elf skills, a frail/scared elf theme, or, as I suspect, simply an oversight?


I'll now go into an overly detailed, and likely unneeded, discussion on the most comparable items between the human skill with a drawback and the least inhibiting, non epic, elf skills:

The discrepancy between the two most comparable, the elf skill Wariness and the human skill Novice Command is quite large.​

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Novice Command has Run, Team! a team move 3 which is independent of race while Wariness has elf mobility, a racial move 2 . Each of these can move your team a total of 6 spaces, but the elf skill requires that all 3 of your characters are elves, and if any of your opponents are elves, they also get to move. This gives of an advantage to the humans in many more situations.​

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Both of the skills have Cautious Sneak so obviously balanced there.​

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Novice Command has Vulnerable, and additional 1 damage on every hit over the course of two rounds. Certainly can be capitalized on by an opponent, but also situational and possibly completely avoidable. Additionally, with additional hit points it would take a fair number of attacks for a human to get to the health of the already frail elf. Meanwhile, the elf has Loner which can do a lot of damage and it is most likely to happen (due to the number of cards drawn) right at the start of the game where you are positioned by both of your other characters. This can result in losing nearly half the characters health at low levels, before even getting to play a card.​

It would seam that elves really get the shaft in the low level skill area. Hopefully this can be addressed.

 

Untrained Footwork also requires not talents and has no drawbacks, but it is an epic. Novice Insight and Apprentice Evasion are additional no talent skills that also have drawbacks. However, completely agree with your post.

Dwarves at least can get a Parry or Blind Rage or some random blacks from their no talent racial skills, humans and elf skills pale in comparison. Humans can only get some team move cards, elves don't get anything other than moves.

 

Interesting. Ah yes, missed an Apprentice Evasion because it was on a character. Are Untrained Footwork and Novice Insight still available? Seems odd that I would have so many of the others but none of them -- except for Untrained due to the rarity. 5 copies of the rare but none of one of the uncommons. *boggle*

 

Yeah, I still completely agree with your point, and want to expand on it.

One thing you don't hit on, most of these Elf skills have 1 "good" card, 1 negative card, and 1 walk (or an otherwise limited move card). In my opinion, for the race that gets a free dash each turn, a walk is pretty much another just another poor card. There's very very little improvement to a elven deck compared to using no racial item, which just puts 3 walks into your deck.

For no talent racial skills; elf skills add about 1 good card to your deck (often at a cost of a negative card), human skills often add one sort of good card (again often at the cost of a negative card), dwarf skills though can have up to 3 decent cards at the same power level.

Look at the dwarven skills like; Stout Charger , Untrained Toughness , or Apprentice Ferocity . Each of these has 3 cards I wouldn't mind adding into my deck, especially considering they replace walk cards. I don't understand why the dwarven skills are substantially better than the equal powered elf or human skills.

I actually think it's kind of funny how bad the other skills are in comparison to the dwarven skills, there was clearly someone on the development team that like dwarves, but I think it's something that needs to be addressed.

 

I've seen Untrained Evasion myself since the last reset, and Novice Insight is available from the Healer starter deck, though I don't own any either.

 

I think it was known that dwarf is going to need some help so adding Charge and Shrug It Off are good addition to dwarf skills where you know it is limited and yet helps to balance/offset what is bad about the dwarf. The issue I have is not that the Dwarf skills are better than Human or Elf skills (I think human skills are pretty decent) but that the Elf skills are so far behind the other two.

I'd be hard pressed to play any of the low level Elf skills if I had just started playing and got one, but I'd drop any of the Human or Dwarf skills in without an issue.

 

I'm talking specifically about no talent skills. Which no talent human skill would you consider better than any of the dwarven skills I listed? And the same for elves?

Heck the dev's even had to actually nerf one of the cards that appears in multiples on a no talent dwarven skill. The dwarf skills, at this level, are in my opinion a talent point better than the other races.

 

So was I, you can get both Charge and Shrug It Off from no talent dwarf skills.

Except for perhaps the Epic Untrained Footwork no elf skill can even compare to any human skill, IMO.

As far as Human compared to Dwarf skills, I'd say it really depends on what you are trying to compare. The dwarf skills are much more situational than the humans, which is I think is good as it plays into the more versatile humans aspect.

Of the Dwarf skills, my personal preference is Untrained Toughness because the one situational card can't backfire on me where both Stout Charger and Apprentice Ferocity have situation cards that can ruin my day. I'd have to think before putting them in my deck to see if they fit the play style of the build I'm creating.

Of the Human skills, I would have no problem putting Untrained Command, Untrained Tactics or even Novice Command in any of my decks.

 

Interesting, we value certain cards very differently (but hey it's natural).

I tend to think charge is a pretty good card, especially for a dwarf. The value of higher move cards improves depending on the "free" move card each race gets in my view. So a move 5, with the possibility to do damage, is a very good thing for a dwarf in my opinion (less so on an elf), regardless of the strait line limitation.

Even Shrug it Off is the type of card I don't mind one of in a deck, though it is more situational. You run into enough encumber that it's often useful and can even be used for things like halt, fire or path of knives.

Blind rage is a solid card on a warrior and some priest builds, this is why they reduced the frenzy damage down to 2. It's pretty easy to play around the downside, especially with step attacks.

As an example, when I look at a no talent item I naturally compare it to the cards it replaces in my deck. So in the case of racial skills 3 move cards. I'm looking for items that improve on all the cards they're replacing, worst case scenario I want improvement on 2 cards.

Untrained Command is the perfect example of a card that doesn't cut it for me. The moves cancel out, I'd rather have a move than Flimsy Block (which I consider to be almost worthless), and shuffle team is ok at times. So as an item it barely improves my deck at all. Untrained Tactics isn't much better, and Novice Command is really nothing but a Run, Team! in my view.

On the dwarf skills I listed I normally find 2-3 cards that improve over the default walks. On the elf and human skills its normally only a single card. They've always stuck out to me, as they seem to be the only items where this is the case.

 

We sure do. Flimsy block for instance is one of my favored "weak" cards because of my play style (I suppose).

Anyway, I tend to value the Human skills a bit more than you, but either way, the thread is about the painful elf skills which we obviously agree on.

 

fyi: http://wiki.cardhuntria.com/wiki/Elf_Skills

You missed 1: Perilous Agility

 

If it's in the game then yup, looks like it. Thanks. Perhaps the title should read All easily accessible elf skills are punishing...

Looks like grinding for low level skills is not only helpful but also needed for elves in this case!

 

My elf priest is level 11 and I have yet to equip a racial due to the drawbacks. Using a power token to make the elf even faster than it already is seems like an inefficient use of power tokens.

 

I'm curious.. is anyone actually using the no talent elf skills in anything other than an all-elf party?

 

Once I started getting racial skills, I made my parties racially pure to take full advantage of Dwarven Battle Cry and Elvish Mobility.

 

Same - Elvish Mobility is amazing. I hate Loner though... it should probably be a little less brutal.

 

I was using them before the changes, and have continued to use them to see just how much if effects the gameplay.

Thus far, I must say, there is never seems to be a good time for Loner to pop up in single player. It has lost me quite a few adventures by killing my last character. I much preferred vulnerable.

Superstitious you really have to plan with and has been nearly equally disabling.

 

Loner is absolutely devastating. Had it on my wizard in the arena battles and it popped first turn on the battle where you start out adjacent to 5 other characters. She died instantly.

 

Loner is the only card that will make me sell an item on sight. Superstitious might be 'improved' by changing "Character" to "Ally".

 

Superstitious isnt that bad on MP, taking one of your opponent down is a huge advantage that I'm willing to sacrifice some card for it. Having your ally down is just like snowballing, you will easily lose either way. I agree that it is very terrible on SP since you are outnumbered on almost every single map. It could change to: When a character not controlled by a GM died, discard your hand. Or: When a character group (group of monster) died, discard your hand.