Force Field Overpowered? Or I miss some good counters?

I have the impression that the impen. nimbus was one of the most annoying card in the game until I saw the Force Field today.
In the past, when I saw impen. nimbus, I could past for one round and save the movement card and attack cards for next round. (it's annoying enough to stop you from attacking with one single card and you have to drop 1-2 cards, which indirectly increase the card draw)
Now it comes with the Force Field, which you need to waste the movement and attacks to try to hit the opponents. (for sure they will fight back)
Or else you need to wait for three rounds doing nothing. (I am pretty sure they will draw another Force Field during those three rounds)
You may argue that you can load at most 4 Force Field in one single character. (it is too much already)
But if you consider that you can pair it up with impen. nimbus, the opponents can hardly do any damages.

Did I miss some good counters on the new cards?
Purge is NOT a good counter at all.
I need to waste one card only to remove opponent's Force Field.
I better be the one who cast the Force Field.
Moreover, I am happy to have several Force Field on hand but NOT purge.

Also in terms of game balance, I don't think of any good reason to add such kind of cards into the game.
1. The card has the potential to single-handedly stop opponent's attack and they don't even have the choice to defend. (or you need wait another round)
2. You don't need much skill to build/use a deck and you are pretty much unbeatable by loading one single card.
3. It makes the gaming experience less enjoyable in general as the opponent can only stop and wait.

 

Winds of War/Gusts of War, Entangling Roots, Destructive Purge, rad attacks, Purging Strike, Smashing Spin, etc. etc..

 

Smashing Spin? Ahahahahaha!

 

(Twice ninja'd)
3 weak attacks will take it down. I guess if you only have strong attacks, it would be more inconvenient.

 

It actually does seem like it could be very broken in the right build. I haven't encountered it much so far, but when I did, it was tough to beat. Now, I just feel as if people aren't using it well/often enough, but it could really be bad for the game.

 

Purging Strike
Nova Axe

 

Purging Burst is a must in your team post EttSC. Oh wait, it was must on your team before that too.

 

I need to use 3 attack card to remove one single buff ...
It's not a good counter at all.
I am pretty sure they will cast another Force Field in the next round.

 

They are all range attacks. I am pretty sure burst attacks work even better.
Do we have something for warriors?
What are rad attacks???
I can have at most two Smashing Spin on one elf.

 

The radiation attacks on priests.

 

Perhaps I should become the one who spam it.
Then people will realize how annoying it is.

 

All it takes is a single Purging Mace to reliably shut that down. Could you imagine if it had a 3rd Purging Strike instead of Predictable Stab and it was tokenless? Scary.

 

Assuming they get perfect draws, they could put another one up as soon as the first one goes down if it seems appropriate.

Yep. Have a ball!

 

bear in mind that every force field item is a major token I believe.

 

Purging Strike?

 

The problem is when you NEED a specific card just to profitably interact with something, then that thing is probably broken.

This reminds me of Magic: the Gathering, a while back, a card called "Survival of the Fittest" was dominating the Legacy format, and everyone's answer to discussions concerning the power level of the card invariably degenerated into "well, you can play X and Y and Z and they all specifically target this card". However, the problem was that the cards that dealt with Survival were niche cards that only really excelled when they were shutting down Survival.

This is the exact problem with saying "Play some purging strikes!" Purging Strike is a niche card that only fulfills a certain role, and if you absolutely need to play purging attacks just to handle Forcefield, and there are few *generic* and *generally good* ways to interact with Forcefield, then Forcefield is broken and should be nerfed.

In Magic, they simply banned Survival of the Fittest and the format / game instantly became much better and more interactive and diverse.

 

"Need" is a very strong word. You can also use bashes/barges/Violent Spin to knock a guy away, just don't attack them for 3 rounds, or hit them with a weak attack and wait 2 rounds, or with 2 weak attacks and wait 1 round, or don't play 3 warriors.

 

I think it's a need.
If you don't attack, you have to drop your attacks due to the card limit.
Also your opponent will not simply sit and wait for three round.
He will come and attack!

 

At the same time, it always surprises me when people start complaining about "card X being OP because it requires you to use Y strat to counter it".

CH is a CCG: you put a deck together, that deck will be strong vs some decks, but it will likely be weak vs some other set of decks.

Case in point, you can't expect your build of choice (whatever that might be) to be able to respond 100% effectively against anything the opponent might be about to throw at you. Otherwise it would be the case that YOUR build is OP

When it comes to FF specifically, it's not like Purging Burst (or other kinds of purges) was the only possible response to it. And even if that was the case, I wouldn't go as far as calling Purge Burst "a niche card". Hell, card attachments are an integral part of CH (DoT, buffs/debuffs, traits, etc), chances are you can find a way to get at least some good use out purges in basically every match-up.

Secondly, FF is a high-value/cost card: it is expected to have a relatively big impact on any game, assuming you can use it at the right time and your opponent isn't able to work around it in a viable way. If, on the other hand, the enemy can react to FF (by purging or whatever other mean), then chances are the FF player just saw a valuable card go down the discard pile w/o accomplishing much.

So, either deal with the FF directly (purge it, use attachments of your own to push it away, etc) or indirectly (attack other guys instead?).

I also find it interesting when people assume "my opponent will probably just use the same card over and over even if I counter it". That's a big sign that you're probably way more scared by the specific card then what can reasonably be accomplished with it. Sure, your opponent might get some damn lucky draws and pick 2-3 FFs in a row, but how luckily is that really? You can do the math yourself and calculate what the chances are for consecutive FF draws, rather than assuming the worst possible scenario will keep presenting itself like the RNGwill always be working against you specificaly.

This kind of reminds me a while ago, when everybody was running Imp Nimbuses and basically everybody was whining about how OP that strategy was. In the meantime, I was systematically beating the crap out of nimbus spammers even though I had a single Purge in my deck.

TL;DR; Actually try and adapt to whatever might be giving you issues in the current meta. Sometime hard-counters are not the only (or best) options available to you. In fact I would suggest to try and see if you can somehow deal with FFs by simply changing your approach to the match w/o having to change your actual build.

 

Shielding Warp Boots
As much as I love having these for 1hp quests, the idea of Force Field being available to every class for a minor token in PvP makes me cringe.