Well hey everybody. I know that most of us are excited about the upcoming expansion, and that the game has taken some enormous leaps and strides in terms of game balance and playability, as evidenced by the lack of balance/complaint threads that used to be oh so common. But I would like to hit the floor and bring up some discussion on cards that have overlooked or neglected. My goal is to have a frank discussion on adjustments that could be done in order to improve the game as a whole. Some things to remember: -SP and MP balance will have to be considered. -Not all cards have to be good, but they should allow for interesting gameplay. -Most items have certain cards for a reason. I would like to focus on the cards themselves, but take a look at ALL of the items that have that card, and keep in mind that some items will have a better distribution of cards than others, and other items will have certain cards in order to have balance. In order to keep this thread from exploding into 50 different topics at once, I am going to post 1 card per 1-2 day(s) and ask people to discuss that card only. If the topic is hot, I will probably give the card 2 days. Once I post a new card, I expect people to post no more discussion about the old card(s) and move onto the new. I have a list of 15 cards that I would like to discuss. If you have any cards that you would like to see discussed, please put them in () braces at the end of your post. If they aren't on my list, they may be added. If they are on my list, they will be discussed eventually.
///////////////////////////// Card of the Day: Raging Strike \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Raging Strike, instead of adding flavour to cool weapons like Bloody Battleaxe, Giant Skeletal Arm, and Rapier of Rage, is the bane of a player's existence when they hold the card in hand, since you Keep it every time you take damage. I mean, it's not like it does high damage to compensate for the painful drawback. Raging Strike does less damage than Strong Hack and Controlled Overswing. If Controlled overswing can be considered a negative effect Strong Hack that does more damage, why not Raging Strike? Suggestions: -Add "Melee Frenzy 3" -Add "Melee Frenzy 2, Keep." -Increase damage from 7 to 9. *NOTE* I suggest one of the above changes, not necessarily all 3! What do you think? Discuss!
Raging strike is not a card that I'd want in my hand, but it is a card I'd want in the game. I like the dynamics of how the card works. I like the idea of having an attack card that you want to play as soon as possible. That said, as a bronze value card it could probably afford to be buffed a bit... either with more damage with played (maybe 9 or 10), or less added damage when attacked (+2). Giving it frenzy could be cool - but then it would be a card that does 3 separate things, and I reckon that's a bit messy.
I like both suggestions, melee frenzy and increased damage. Also should be considered that Rageblood Dagger is possibly already the best weapon...
Looks like a good start so far! Items with Raging Strike: 9. Rageblood Dagger, Angerforged Maquah, Oversized Pick, Bloody Battleaxe, Rapier of Rage Madman's Maul, Giant Skeletal Arm, Glinting Eye Hammer, Axe of the Dark Soul *EDIT* Observation: Raging Strike appears mainly on items with other relatively strong cards. However, most items with Raging Strike get relatively little use due to composition, similar items, loathing hatred dislike of getting hit while holding Raging Strike, etc etc. There is no doubt that Raging Strike is a downside to these items. Is the downside too much? You decide.
Interesting. I find adding melee frenzy to it absolutely useless because unless you know the opponent can't attack at all,you would still want to use it ASAP. Adding damage would work fine. This card is supposed to be as good as an trained bludgeon(if my info is not outdated) and it is clear almost anyone would prefer it over raging strike. While you can use it ASAP safely most of the time thanks to it being hidden untill triggered, There are rare cases where you can't and your opponent take massive advantage of it from distance. I would say that on average, you get hit about once so +3 damage over trained bludgeon should be perfect. Therefore, I entirely support increasing the damage to 9.
Adding Frenzy would probably make the card too complicated, and add too much text. If the damage was raised to 9, how would that affect single player? It looks like it's on Goblin Berserkers, gnome berserkers, and a goblin king. Would cranking it up make the goblin berserkers too tough for the levels players run into them? Remember, something like 80% of the players only or mostly play single player, according to the devs.
The AI is incredibly stupid. Where raging strike is bad for a player, it should be a quality even lower than black for the AI. It could do 15 damage and I would still be praying that the AI draw it because it is child play to exploit. Adding 2 damage to it is a drop in the ocean AI-wise.
Yeah, the AI is dumb. But I'm not considering it in terms of experienced players, what would adding damage do to it when a newbie runs into it the first time through? I don't think they'd be one-shotting any characters when they run into them, but it's a thing to consider. I don't remember off-hand which levels they were in, but it was medium/low level ones, I think.
Between the fact that there is few copies of it in monster's decks that it tend to be discarded at the end of each turn because it is low-quality and that players also get the boost, I don't think +2 damage would make it harder for newbies. But if the devs think it will, they can always change the card only for players and have monsters keep the old version like for many other cards they changed such as Pulverizing Bludgeon.
Raging strike is pretty bad, but it is also on a few items (mainly rageblood and glinting eye hammer) that might be too powerful if it wasn't such a harsh drawback. If I were to recommend a change, it would be to change the rarity from bronze to paper. I think rageblood would still be , although glinting eye might be buffed at (those token calculations might be wrong). The main reason I recommend this is because it might make some of the lower level raging strike items more interesting. Edit: Forgot about Axe of the Dark Soul, which would become ... I think that would probably be okay, but it certainly isn't an item that needs buffing...
It's worth noting - and probably should be looked up for future cards to be discussed - Raging Strike is a Bronze (-), Strong Hack is a straight Bronze and Controlled Overswing is a Bronze (+). This affects how they are costed on items and means they are not actually considered equivalent (though close). Instead Raging Strike is equivalent to Trained Bludgeon which is also a Bronze (-).
That is very important piece of info. Initially I supported increase of card's damage to 9, but now I think smaller boost (to 8) would be preferred in order to retain Raging Strike's bronze(-) status. With 9 damage it could be a viable candidate for straight bronze quality.
Wat. Merdis, you've been over 1500 elo, how can you say something so silly? Raging Strike is a terrible card, no matter what damage it has. Actually it's 10: you forgot Axe of the Dark Soul which can also be a decent item in some combo decks. Lowering the quality looks also a great idea, although I too don't know what would it too with items' token costs. Currently I would rather draw a Backbiting Strike than a Raging Strike which is just wrong/very weird.
I wish there was an easy way to list all Bronze(-) quality melee attacks. Currently it certainly is a terrible card. I believe it should be made less terrible, but still rather bad - I would rather slightly buff now and watch how it impacts the game than risk overbuffing. Therefore I would rather increase its damage by 1 or 2 (or even 3) points without changing card's quality status (bronze(-)). I was wrong in my last post, changing Raging Strike into full-bronze card would require much more than adding plain 2 damage.
Also, before going further with this thread, I'd like to say that game's balance is so much better than it was a year ago! A great number of items are now playable and every class and race sees almost equally much play (okay, warriors little bit more than others but it's ok ). Still, I do think that the game could be even more balanced so I'll gladly discuss any potentially too good or too bad cards.
Trained Bludgeon Raging Strike Shifty Stab* That's the entire list for player accessible cards. *Shifty Stab is considered Paper(-) quality on priest items, which there is one that includes it.
All decks with Raging Strike have multiple 10 or 11 damage attacks, so the damage change wouldn't matter much. Those calculations are correct. Bronze- to Paper is two points, so six-card items would lose exactly one level per copy (which might make even Oversized Pick worth using in SP).
I still hold to this: But as discussion in itself can be interesting, as long as it's going on, maybe it would be helpful to list cards of the same type as the card in question both one step below and above for these discussions. Thus for example: Melee Bronze Cards Able Stab Impetuous Slash Lunging Thrust Predictable Stab Simple Bash Startling Strike Strong Bludgeon Strong Hack Tricky Stab Melee Bronze(-) Cards Trained Bludgeon Raging Strike Shifty Stab Melee Paper(+) Cards Able Bludgeon Clumsy Chop Consuming Spear Consuming Touch Lunging Hack Penetrating Cut Purging Strike I don't see myself doing this for future cards, but it seems like it would be good if someone was willing to do so if the desire is to have a quality discussion on these cards.
Mmmh, raging strike. The only problem I see with buffing it would be is that it would make certain items op. Example: Rageblood Dagger. Currently raging strike is one of those fun cards, and if you manage to somehow bring it to MP I feel like it's worth the challenge. (Think BJ elves and their Rageblood daggers). If we were to make any changes at all, perhaps increase the damage by 1? I feel like this card at its current state is okay where it is.