Elves!!!!!!

Kalin, what 4? Just curious what items. Lets say you use Impetuous Shield. Where are the other 2 coming from?

 

What are talking about again? Oh right, Lifesaving Block.

The other 2 come from Rusted Angel Mail (and you can get 2 more from dual wielding Duality Maces).

 

I say give elven wizards 3 staves and only 2 arcane items! That's a crazy brainstorm idea of course but I think you'd need something drastic like that to make elven wizards anything but poo.

 

Woah, what a radical suggestion! That would be super hilariously funny though. I think they should just buff their health a bit and decrease dwarf wizards' health a bit.
A.k.a - lessen the health difference for wizards.

 

It's meant to be radical. Radical suggestions are good because they get you thinking about possibilities. Treating established expectations as sacred is bad for game design. You want balance, you want fun, you don't want stagnation. Wielding three staves is probably a bad idea, but it's the kind of thinking that I believe is good for finding solutions to broken systems.

 

You might need to remove 2 arcane items since staves have 6 cards and items only 3. If not, elven wizards would have bigger decks (39 instead of 36 cards) that other combos which could be a detriment since you dilute your good cards.

What if there were some elven racials that gave bonuses to arcane damage similar to Blind Rage for dwarves. Something like +1 to arcane and ranged attacks, 3 damage for each attack in hand at the end of a round?

 

Giving elves magic-boosting racial cards is something I think I might have suggested back before becoming a dev and I still think it's a good idea

 

Like Spell Skill or Magic In The Air?

 

you just need to learn on how to use the board if you know what i mean. including elfs. unless you are racist.

 

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║~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~you are a beautiful strong elf wizard ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~║
║~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ who don’t need no balance changes ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~║
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Elf wizards do make lovely corpses.

 

Ahh, this thread is old my friends. T'was made before the time of Cautious Mobility and The Cult of the Bejeweled.

 

AotA came out about a year ago? Cautious Mobility was definitely around

Also,

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║~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~Repost this if ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ║
║~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~you are a beautiful strong elf wizard ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~║
║~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ who don’t need no balance changes ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~║
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The single-player [PvE] perspective:

Dwarven wizards are profound. Add in racial tanking skills- especially Duck- and they can not only tank most monsters, but with no need to emphasize mobility, build for raw power, making them the definitive mage.

Human wizards: Good if you want to dump ranged support all on one unit, but there's no specific synergy involved. Good all-around, however.

Elf wizards: Theoretically good on large maps where you have to chase teleporting mobs, but unfortunately, those mobs also have ranged attacks, meaning you still end up dying in 2 to 3 hits- it's FAR easier to just corner a fleeing mob with a dwarven or human wizard. And against bosses? You're going to die fast.


Dwarven priests: The lack of mobility hurts, but the defensive abilities and abilities to emphasize combat make them comparable to fighters. Well-balanced.

Human priests: Great heal/buff/leadership support unit. Good-all around.

Elven priests: Good as vampire offense, especially if you're running multiple priests that can emphasize buffing the unit prior to its assault. Elven priests are lousy, otherwise.


Dwarven warriors: Tanky. Add in some mobility-based cards, and they're pretty well balanced [and hilarious with Vibrant Pain, because, flying dwarves]. Comparable to elven warriors.

Human warriors: Emphasis on 'attack, soldier' skill cards make them a good support melee for another melee (plus a buffing priest), but they feel somewhat lacking, otherwise.

Elven warriors: Weak as any other elf to start with, but once you build around mobility attacks and the proper racial skills, they turn into frenzied dervishes of pain. This creates a rather unfortunately narrow build window, but at the same time, the distinct flavor really makes their gameplay stand out, and always makes it interesting to swap to parties with them included.


Summary/Thoughts:

Humans feel lackluster outside of specific support roles. Then again, they have no distinct flaws, either. A bit more variety and polish to their racial skills would help [some feel really weak, and there's a sort of over-emphasis on handicap cards compared to the gain provided by a skill], but they don't need any major rebalancing.

Dwarves: Dwarven priests, while potent on their own, feel a bit lighter than dwarven fighters and mages. Also, you'd think there'd be a purge-based skill line in the racial cards, given that, well, dwarves. Dwarves have the best balance among individual racial cards, and the general defensive properties of the cards make them valuable to any class.

Elves feel rather limited to specific vampire priest and dervish build profiles.
Mages are, while sometimes comparable, never stand-out, and generally do terrible. A mage skill line would be useful- a possible approach would be a 'range of non-melee attacks is increased by 2' 'Elven Ranged Mastery' skill card. This'd emphasize the traditional ranged emphasis of elves, while also not risking a 'draw x magic cards' overpower approach. It also helps mitigate the elves' weakest aspect, their low health, by letting them get an edge on range, while not actually negating their racial hp/move balance.

I'd also like to see more emphasis on alternative build profiles for warriors and priests in the skill cards: For example a quick reactions themed layout, but with more versatility on what is being countered: If you manage to emphasize general (non-mobility) card draw, without it favoring vampiric attack cards [ie, by attaching the proposed elven spell range card to the the skill item], you can simultaneously improve elven mages and support-priest builds with the same approach.

Eg, a skill card with Elven Ranged Mastery, Quick Reactions, and another card that plays out like Blooming Ground [but perhaps with a counter to any mage-volcano imbalances] could make for a potent cleansing/consecrate ground long-range priest support build.

Another approach for elven warriors could be to emphasize elven finesse in parrying [ie, giving a card that gives blocking preference/ability toward melee attacks], to allow elves to function reasonably as counter-melee-tanks, rather than just as dps/mobility/dodge builds.
Ie, a trait where if a melee attack fails to damage you for any reason, you draw a card. Emphasize it on racial cards that come with parry cards attached, rather than with dodge or elven manuevers, and you've got an entire new warrior-themed, but universally good for elven defense, skill line.

 

Pretty good analysis... I would say the one thing you left out is the ability for Human warriors to have an additional AoA via racial. Elves already have dodge/skip they don't need more blocking/ attack avoidance but I agree that Elf Wiz is the worst race/class combo in the game and that Dwarven wizards seem to tank-ish for a ranged character.

 

I was detailing builds and overall balance. While Superb Command is to humans what Electroporter Novice is to mages, it doesn't appreciably affect distinct build designs or overall racial balance. Moreover, as a Uncommon, it's a clear counterpoint to the generally troubled/underpowered human skill cards, with its high utility to cost and rarity only further diminishing your willingness to use other, lower value offerings.

Or, to rephrase more clearly, it's a good example of what human skill cards should orient toward, and I emphasized more what was having problems, than what was not.
In the case of what is working and useful for humans, you're right, that's definitely worth noting.


Dodge/Skip is mobility based. While it functions reasonably well for non-warriors as a general defensive option, it only further pidgeon-holes elven warriors into mobility builds, which in turn means you're going to go for skills with elven maneuvers anyway. And since elves have no other real alternatives for survivability other than vampire priest builds or being dps-heavy mobility fighters, you're stuck with the same builds. Having a more generalized option- of which my melee defense+parry spec was simply a thematic suggestion- is necessary if you want to expand elven melee builds out of two very narrow builds: An issue that neither humans nor dwarves have with their skill sets, making elves rather unfortunately unique in their specificity, regardless of how potent the builds in question may be.
While you're more than welcome to argue what is and what isn't a good addition to general elven skills- or simply if there's a way to add in new dodge/skip skills enhanced with an ability that can take the place of elven maneuvers for non-mobility-builds; or a way to add to the scouting skill lines to make for an interesting new scouting build;
The fact remains that elves have a narrowness of scope that the other races don't, as much from lack of generalized versatility in available skills, as how good the existing skills make specific builds.

tl;dr, elves need more firmness to their generalized skillsets, or more alternatives to existing ones, to create more diversity in what builds are feasible to use with them.

As far as dwarven wizard tanking, I don't really see that as a problem, if we emphasize Thinking, Command and Elven Magic concepts. Having a wizard specced for high hp and defensive abilities is a pretty cool alternative to more strategic concepts, and keeps dwarves useful for the role. Elven mages definitely need an assist, simply because at the moment, anything they can do, a human can do way better. Obviously, since the glass cannon effect is intentional to design, this assist should be strategic, and not affect survivability factors any. Given how potent Elven Maneuvers is, and how much more dangerous a similarly themed skill could be with spells, damage-based/card-draw effects are likely not ideal either, and are needlessly narrow in strategic scope besides [and likely would pidgeonhole players into using elves for mage play].

I'm personally in favor of the +2 range [I should note, not applicable to Linear or Cone spells] in large part because it makes the low-range (eg, Zap) spells more versatile, and thus creates more variety in what a mage can pull off, rather than just alternating between Encumber/TerrainBlock, Volcano/Fire, Acid/Spike terrain control, and Electro-spam themes. Not that that isn't already a good scope of variety, but more is better ;P
It's also conceptually interesting, because it's clearly a 'mastery of magic' effect, tying to the 'elves specialize as wizards' theme Card Hunter is playing to; it also benefits from applying to support spells, thus benefiting priests, and if bows/thrown attacks are ever added, benefiting those. Ergo, highly versatile, allowing a generalized theme for non-melee elves, who already have a theme in mobility.

In any case, whatever approach is used, I'm looking forward to when elven mages feel less like a handicap and more like a unique, fun option.

 

But what about the people out there that are three elf wizards

 

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║~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Repost this if you are an elf power activist ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ║
║~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ who only associates with elf wizards ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ║
║~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ who don’t need no balance changes ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ║
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║~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~Repost this if ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ║
║~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~you are a beautiful strong elf warrior ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ║
║~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ who don’t rely on parrys and war crys. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ║
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that's a stupid item.