[Balance] Card Discussion

I have disliked Toughness since day 1. Very powerful, cycles and hidden. It is a Gold card so it should be good, but I always felt it allowed D-wiz to be too hard to kill. I also resented it bypassed penetrating. Now... well I am not as furious about it but still think Perfect Toughness is totally unfair. This is the only item that has 2 Toughness and while Rusty Armor is lame, you need a lame card to get 2 gold cards on a 3 slot item.

If I could I wold change Perfect Toughness and be done with the whining. Much like Resistant hide it is an immunity card and immunity is lame, but 1 per character would make it tolerable. The other option is make Toughness more "realistic".
Suggestions:

1. Reduce all damage by 75% (tough not invulnerable); draw card
   
2. Prevent all damage; draw a card if damage prevented is 5 points or less.
3. Prevent all damage, only triggered on range 1 or 2 attacks (melee only); draw card
4. Prevent all damage; Keep if damage prevented is 2 points or less. (no draw)
   
5. Prevent all damage; attach to character, Duration 2, next attack gets Frenzy 2, hard to block 1 (no draw)

My favorites are 2 & 5:
#5 helps melee characters more than ranged (ranged tough guys is lame)
#2 only get to draw from minor attacks

I doubt we will see any change and I accept that Perfect Toughness will likely remain the best racial skill for wizards, but I can dream of a day where is D-wiz are as squishy as a wiz should be.

 

Effects that level the playing field are irritating enough. Volcano, Firestorm, you get the idea. So no.

 

"You and each adjacent character are Stunned for 1 round" could be interesting, but still probably abusable.

 

That's like a sadder, immobile version of Elven Trickery.

 

The Stop keyword on Acid Spray seems like it should be on a different terrain card entirely, and not one that deals damage and removes all Armor from anyone who stays in the terrain. That's what might be keeping Acid Spray from being a better card: just the Stop keyword.

I think Acid in general should stop being sticky and start being deadly. I think it deserves 5 damage up from 3 and last up to 3 turns up from 2. But no Stop keyword! That is not fun to play around. Hardly anything should keep players from moving more than 1 square per Move card if movement is as big of a part of the game as it is right now. There's enough things in the game inhibiting and manipulating movement already.

As a side note, something like Sticky Spray might be a fun Paper tier wizard terrain card; Terrain becomes Sticky terrain, erases other terrain effects, lasts 2 turns, and terrain makes units Stop as they move into it and that's it haha. The artwork could be a jar of Ye Olde Superglue.

 

I'm not sure you get the idea behind the design of Acid Terrain, Lava Terrain, Illusionary Terrain, and Spiked Terrain. (Be reminded that this is purely my opinion and analysis of the game's design.)

Lava Terrain is purely for magic damage - and just that. It has no Stop effect, and its damage type is countered by Resistant Hide. This is your go-to terrain for offensive purposes, basically. Lots of Lava Terrain can be placed easily, but since it has no form of utility for it to stick, it's not too scary.

Spiked Terrain is for non-magical damage, and as a choke point blocker. It has a Stop effect, but it's available only as a single tile (Stone Spikes). Its damage is not countered by Resistant Hide, which is why it's useful on its own.

Illusionary Terrain is for utility entirely - it blocks line of sight of the opponent and it has a Stop effect. It's available only as three tiles with one or three turns duration. It has no damage at all, but its LoS functionality makes up for it well.

Acid Terrain is the middleground (heh excuse the pun) - it does unpreventable damage and has a Stop effect. It removes armor, which counts as utility. Its damage is less than that of Lava Terrain and of Spiked Terrain, but it is unpreventable, and that's huge.

Now, say, if your suggestion were to be implemented, why take Lava Terrain or Spiked Terrain at all? Five points of unpreventable damage and armor removal would be better than 6 points of straight out damage (Spiked Terrain), and why gamble with 8 damage that can easily be reduced (Lava Terrain) or negated?

Your side suggestion of Sticky Spray is also not a good idea, I think - Mud Terrain (Mud Pit) has almost identical functionality. Why not just use that?

If you're bothered by Stop terrain, then run Fly! I think the Stop effect is not powerful at the moment, and therefore there is no reason to remove it. Besides, if the Stop effect was an issue, people would be running Fly, and they're not. I think it's necessary that a balance issue is discussed in a context. (Now I understand you better, Flax )

 

(Nice, Deepweed.)

Teleport Self, Reflexive Teleport, Telekinesis, Wings of Faith, Flight Aura, Leap, Nimble Strike, Scamper, Cleansing Ray, Cleansing Burst, and Cleansing Presence all get around Stop terrain—as do Hot Spot, Wall of Fire, Illusory Barrier, and Wall of Illusion, which you can use to overwrite the terrain to be walkable (for your team only, in the latter case). Additionally, if you're a wizard, Hover should get you over, and Dimensional Traveler should get you off. Seems like there's a lot of counterplay, even if you're running a narrow build (e.g. triple warrior still has access to a lot of Flight Aura, Scamper, Leap, and Nimble Strike; triple priest has a lot of the same movement cards in addition to cleansing, etc.). Acid Spray definitely shouldn't be Acid Pool—encasing someone in acid is much stronger, and at range no less! I think Acid Spray's main issue is that it has bad synergy with other wizard cards and its itemization isn't great. I'd like it more as a B- card than as a B card, so that you could equip the triple Acid Spray arcane item for . But I think the card in itself is honestly not too good or bad at its current value. I'd rather look at building new synergies in the future to make the card shine, than modify the card (assuming we even want to make the card shine. It's a fool's errand to make all cards equally playable and fun). And adding new cards (e.g. Sticky Spray), especially at different qualities, is not the answer at all because that would require new items, which in themselves could totally change the balance of most existing cards! The strength of cards is determined by a lot more than what's written on them: how good or bad a card is depends on its itemization and its ensuing role (or lack thereof!) in the environment.

 

Speaking of mud terrain, why can't we use it? Why can't we make difficult terrain either?
Side note: Acid terrain destroys armor but nimbus would still prevent the damage so shouldn't you(Deepweed) say that it has penetrating damage instead

 

Give me my new acid cards and staffs... lol

Burst 1 acid! Corrosive acid effects amplifying acid damage further! Etc., etc.

 

The armor removal happens before the damage, so acid terrain takes out resistant hide.

Stopping terrain has some benefits, but mostly if people are going for that, they go for illusionary. Even with warriors, you often have enough step attacks and the like to get through it.

And that's probably Acid Spray's biggest problem, to make it useful, you have to get too close and will probably get whacked. Human players aren't like the AI, who won't step on terrain effects, even if they could kill you or survive it easily.

 

Same reason you can't use Dastardly Curse or Four-Headed Bite or Only Bones or Energize or Magic in the Air: it's not on player items

 

Please never give players Only Bones or Brains! Those would be nightmares.

 

Oh sure, after Resistant Hide and Grounding Plates, I'm sure they will never release any new items with immunity cards.

 

Hahahaha.

 

@Fifjunior7 you know too much. Pssh. :3

I bet there's something like a Firebrand Mantle that gives fire resistance of some sort. Or maybe Only Bones and Amorphous Body get put into items?

 

Superman. Armor 1, keep, provides immunity to all attacks above black quality. Keep. if this is discarded, put it into an ally's hand.

 

I feel like you guys are mocking us

 

We already have Anvil Strike. Although from the direction this conversation is going, I doubt anything in the expansion will feature that or a similar card.

 

After some testing, I have reevaluated my position on Acid Spray. It can be a surprisingly good card, but I think it should be bumped down to Silver-, so that you can have 3 of it for a minor token.

I was able to do lots of fun stuff with Acid Jet, Acid Spray, and Acid Blast combined and it really was fun. Having layers upon layers of stopping terrain on the opponent is a beautiful sight to see, and when you use Smoke Bomb to your advantage (by clearing your side of the smoke with Acid Spray) it becomes a lot more interesting. It's definitely a good counter versus high movement without Free Move or Fly and to some extent Smoke Bomb.

I fear, though, that the damage can only be triggered by a dwarf mage who has a good quantity of parries/toughness (say, Chask + racial parry/toughness + some form of extra defense). Sulphuric Staff and Greater Sulphuric Staff are pretty weak for this reason, and since you have too many ways to remove armor.

Otherwise, you're gonna use it just for terrain, and it's quite risky given that you have to place a mage in front of a chokepoint. It works well with control assistance, especially Telekinesis which can drive an opponent back two layers of Stop terrain.

The card has another more interesting aspect, though; it cascades really well. You can put 4 layers of acid terrain between you and an opponent, and that's really irritating. Now add Acid Jet to the picture and maybe Acid Blast to cover those spots you couldn't reach...

 

That would be a good reason for a Quick Run wizard, but still seems highly dangerous as I would imagine it could still be blocked and team moves would still be in effect.