[Feedback] Comments on Balance Changes AFTER Playtesting

I'm see that the armor discussion is going around whether it's op or not. Let's leave the op thing aside for a while, let's talk about possibilities to remove armor for each class:

Wizards: plenty. Boiling Armor is the best for this purpose, but they also have Dissolve Armor and Melt Armor, plus other discard cards like Memory Loss, Perplexing Ray and Short Perplexing Ray that could work too. Oh, and acid: Acid Spray, Acid Jet and Acid Blast. They have some specialized items in armor removal, the best one is common: Akon's Amulet. Acidic Gland is rare. We have uncommon weapons like Sulphuric Staff and Greater Sulphuric Staff. Among other examples.

Warriors: only Sundering Strike, aside for one Boiling Armor in Flametouched Spear. Sundering Strike only appears in 11 weapons. 2 rares, 6 epics and 3 legendaries. So, right from the start, they are much harder to get than what it is for wizards. The clear number one here is Sundersong, legendary, with 5 of them. Then, only 3 weapons have 3: The Tenderizer, Petochl's Sword and White Katana, 1 legendary and 2 epics. Then it's only 2 or 1, meaning those aren't a reliable armor removal method. The 2 rares, Marblehilt Blade and Warrior's Axe, are terrible weapons.

Priests: similar to warriors, but worse: Sundering Strike only appears in 10 divine weapons, all of them epics or legendaries. The only one that has 3 is Gauixl's Sacred Maquah, legendary.

So, what's my point? Armor has become an important factor in the test server, which isn't bad per se. The bad thing is the unbalanced ways to remove that armor for the different classes. If you don't have armor removal at all, a combination of something like General Jelom's Helm and Aranak's Chain Web, or even some more common armor like Bulging Cuirass + some Enchanted Harness that your opponent is using could be really overwhelming and could tip the balance to his favor significantly.

So, what happens to new players that don't have a large collection of items? (heck, even experienced players can have a lot of trouble to amass a good quantity of Sundering Strikes) As armor is a big deal (remember, I'm not saying op), they are practically forced to include at least one wizard in their builds. And anything that forces you to include sth if you want to have a chance to win is bad for the game.

I'm not saying that warriors and priests should have equal access to armor removal in comparison with wizards. Wizards have to be the best in that. But the problem is that an important part of the meta, armor, can only be countered by one and only one card for both warriors and priests. If we had some other worse but more common cards, like an attack of just 3 or 4 damage that said "discard the last enemy's armor that prevented damage from this attack", spread in several weapons so we can actually choose which ones to use, it would be much better. Wizards would remain to be the best (easy access to the best armor removal card of the game, the common Boiling Armor) but pure melee teams would also have their own options besides the very hard to find Sundering Strike.

That is my main concern with armor stacking.

 

the decent harness items are mostly legendary with maybe 1 or 2 epic so new players won't be seeing them most likely another point is even if the unlikely happens and a warrior becomes unkillable you can still easily win the games because the warrior in question sacrificed a lot of attack potential to use all the high cost harness items so just kill off the other 2 characters i played against a warrior once with 2 dodges and i couldnt damage it at all its the same thing as harness stacking really i just avoided the character with dodge and won the game with ease.

 

Chain Harness and Leather Harness are also decent now, just not as good as Enchanted Harness. And between those 3 we have more than 40 items that have those cards, the double of the items in which Sundering Strike appears for warriors and priests togeteher. And why do you think they have to sacrifice a lot of attack potential? I can ran General Jelom's Helm and Aranak's Chain Web and still have room for The Strongarm, The Bludgeonator and Infused Greatclub.

Also, you didn't seem to understand my point. The fact that an important part of the game can only be countered by ONE CARD for 2 of the 3 classes is bad design.

 

you want all the classes to have many counters? when step moves were wreaking havoc no one called for more/better encumber/halt cards on priest and warrior because wizards had plenty please don't promote homogeneity between classes no one likes that and it kills games.

oh and btw there was 2 cards for warrior and priest to remove armor but they buffed all of weaker ones to sundering strike so that is already a slight buff before you even asked for it

 

Priests has another solution to armor stacking: touch of death. Given that vamp builds have trouble with armor I would not be surprised to see the card starting to see some play if armor stacking got popular.

 

Well, penetrating attacks are all counters to armor but that won't make me like these new harnesses. I agree they weren't as good as they could have been but a smaller buff for them would have been wiser I think. Let the Officer's Harness have its glory as a stacking item. (Kk, Arcane Shell may join too, I don't mind it )

 

Almost everyone called for answers to steps.

 

just by looking at Captain Cedric's Helm and General Jelom's Helm you can clearly see that officers harness is still fair. most items with officers harness before were priced well and the other harnesses were badly priced now they have been buffed they are ok for the price.

 

please read what i said the answers people wanted were nerfs because they were needed. i said no one asked for better encumber/halt moves on priest and warrior because wizard had good encumber spells which is true.

 

One thing I'd add. Armor removal is part of the equation, ignoring armor via penetrating attacks is the other. Essentially if armor becomes an issue, it's more likely that penetrating attacks would become more valued as they're easier to get and buff via traits. This would also show the value of penetrating bolts to wizards. Priests still get the short end of the stick (as usual).

Penetrating attacks were really not that values in the previous meta, it was all step attacks and high damage bludgeons. If the meta actually saw some armor builds it would simply encourage different weapon selection.

I'm still waiting to see a crazy build with it. Ok, so normally if I want to see a single instance of a card in the first 3 turns, I try to fit 5 of those cards in a normal sized deck. Maybe 4 if I'm running lots of traits or am doing something with card draw. So, if I really want to abuse harnesses, I would probably want to get multiple of them in hand. So am I wrong in thinking a build would probably want at least 8 armors to reliably draw multiples each game? Warriors have 3 items to get these cards (plus the dwarf racial), so it's more likely for them to have 5 or 6 of the cards. Priests only have access to 2 items, so are even more limited. If you can't get enough harnesses in the deck than it won't be all that reliable.

So to me the only warrior that could abuse these are dwarf warriors, but that build would still need to find a way to solve for the dwarven movement issues.

 

Crazy Sal's Halberd is nice because it cycles to get the harnesses and the polearm slashes combo with with the harnesses still not op tho

 

I agree, I think penetrating attacks play into this very much. If I may offer a SP anecdote, I just got done completing the drawback only quest for Black Plume Mountain and I defeated the dragon with a 1/1/1 build - but actually only used the priest and warrior against the dragon, the wiz was relegated to Blackhammer duty. That meant I didn't bother with armor removal I just went with as much penetrating as I could on both the priest and warrior and it was surprisingly effective.

 

No, I'm not asking for homogeneity, I'm asking for more answers to armor that just one card between 2 classes. That's far from asking for homogeneity.

Just look at what happened with Flash of Flood. The new Wall of Stone had become a big problem in the test server due to its lack of counterplay. The only ones that could be oblivious about it were other wizards, but priests and warrior's only choice was Fly or Teleport. Access to teleport for these classes is very limited, while Wings of Faith only appears in 5 divine items (1L, 3E and 1R, only the epics and the legendary are good). Meanwhile, Flight Aura was a terrible choice because it could be easily removed with any attack.

So, what did the devs do? they took several meassures to increase Flash of Flood's counterplay, especially for melee that was the most affected:
Melee now can counter Flash of Flood in different ways:
a) Flight Aura was buffed with the "keep" keyword
b) Nimble Strike was given "fly"
c) Water terrain is now liable to cleanse cards, which appear in a lot of priest's items
d) Priests can replace water terrain with blessed terrain.
They also added one counter for wizards, as they can now replace water terrain with any other type of terrain cards.

This is what I mean. Not asking for homogeneity, just a bit more of counterplay.

You are right that if this armor issue resolves itself just by playing more penetrating Attacks, then it wouldn't be so bad. Although penetrating attacks usually do little damage, so a MF priest would be mandatory there. But I have yet to see a good warrior's weapon with all penetrating attacks besides Flashing Longspear, and as you and Fry The Guy also have said, priest's choices are way limited (Touch of Death only).

 

No one has mentioned Frenzy Aura yet. I know the first thing I'm going to try out if harnesses become popular is Cuirass Of Froth. It is much better with the downgraded encumber on Ill-fitting Armor.

 

Well not entirely true. Priests can also have:

Perforating Strike
Penetrating Lunge
Puncturing Stab
Penetrating Stab
Impaling Stab

And though not technically penetrating, they also have access to:

Devastating Blow
Punishing Strike

Though, it is true these cards are not widely available for priests. I'd be interested to see how priests would fair if one of the mid-level vamp attacks was made penetrating.

 

the choices are limited for priest yes but you wouldnt pick a penetrating attack other than Touch of Death to counter harness stacking and with maximum of 10 per deck on easy to find items you don't really need to add any more. frenzy aura also adds penatrating but isnt reliable

 

The problem with armor and armor stacking isn't really the counters or availability of them. It is about how it boils down to a binary gameplay. There's no interesting decision making in armor or armor stacking outside of building decks. Armor is either there or not -- it isn't like blocks where smart play can bypass or enable. That's the primary problem with making armor easier to stack than it currently is.

My solution would be to let one harness stay around per turn and change the name of Officer's Harness to something else and allow it to stack as much as you want. That would mean that armor would still be strong (especially with Harness), but having tons of them in the deck isn't as important. It also means that if you have more in your deck you run the risk of getting two and having to discard one, but at the same time you have an increased chance of drawing it. That is a lot more interesting and meaningful than simply putting as much as you can.

Yes, if it becomes obscenely strong people will run anti-armor cards -- but then those who don't use armor will be at a huge advantage for those running wasted Boiling Armor and Penetrating attacks. I'd want a game where play matters instead of who builds the right deck to counter the other deck. Gameplay should be much more important over having the right item configuration at the start.

 

no one would put in as much as they can because they would get rekt by armor removal and boiling armors will never be wasted if you know how many to put in hitting a res hide or a toughness is just as satisfying as hitting 2 or 3 harnesses.

 

Again, there's no downside to putting them in your deck. You have to put armor slots, you might not use as many tokens for Harness due to armor removal, but ultimately it forces the enemy to run tons of armor removal "just in case."

What is your name on the test server? I'll gladly play you in a few games and show you the problems.

 

tbh idk why i argue how much of a good change this is because it will 100% go to live no matter what i say because no one will be able to break it and show that its op (because its not at all) and it brings lots of new mechanics into the meta and at the same time making a lot of junk items playable. for me its the best balance change nimble strike was over nerfed aswell as WW. its seems to me like they spent 6 months thinking about this perfect harness change which is a masterstroke on so many levels most of which ive mentioned and then threw together the changes everyone wanted at the last minute and didnt get it quite right. but grats on this change can't wait to see it on live and to watch a certain few eat their humble pie