Acid spray + hex of dissolution is completely broken

Very cheap and easy to get tons and tons of acid spray with 3 wizards, then you can one-shot almost everyone from range 8. Fun but insanely broken. Maybe 1 damage per 4 tiles is about right? Vakaz also had a good idea for only boosting the damage based on acid tiles within 3 tiles of the target.

 

Yeah, definitely broken. You could just change it to 1 damage per x acid tiles, but I think it'd be cooler to make it based on the amount nearby the target. It would make avoiding or cleansing the acid a viable strategy, while also making acid spray a riskier method of delivering acid (since your wiz would have to get right up in their face).

Something like: "For each acid tile within 3-4 squares of the target, deal 1 extra point of damage"

 

For the record, I love the idea of finally making acid wizards a useful and relevant archetype. Just needs some tweaking.

 

SUPER POWERFUL COMBO

Given that it is a range 8 dissolve armor that does 4 damage, and each acid spray can add 8 damage to any Hex played over two turns, this combo is scary. I wouldn't mind seeing a damage cap on it (max 10 damage, say) or fewer Hexes available (max 7 per wiz could definitely be dropped) or one of many other possible changes.
Ideally, I'd like to see 4-5 copies max, 0 base damage and 6 range but as I've only played it against cardo, those numbers are speculative at best.

If Hex is meant to encourage the use of Acid, I don't think this is the way to do it as I often find I'm throwing out acid sprays that don't hit anyone, just for the sake of the damage boost

But I agree with LCD, glad acid wizards are going to be relevant!

 

This is exactly what I'm looking for, thanks folks.

I don't really want it to do ZERO absent acid tiles (maybe 1 like Dissolve Armor).

I like the idea of dividing the # of acid tiles, rather than only looking at acid tiles near the enemy, because I want this to have synergy with Acid Spray (just... less synergy lol), and with Acid Leak, and Acid Jet. I'll check with Jon about what levers we have to nerf the Hex. (I think Vakaz's idea is pretty good though.)

And yeah since this is primarily a damage spell I think Range 6 is a good place for it.

I'll nerf Caustic Pain if, after fixing the basic Hex mechanics, we feel the need during the broader playtest.

 

Just thinking out loud for a sec here...
Hypothetically speaking, but if Hex's range went down to 6 and its damage got boosted by # of acid tiles within 4 squares of the target...

If you're 6 squares away from the target and you play a max-tile Acid Spray facing the target, only the outer 5 tiles would count towards the Hex -> 4+5 = 9 damage Hex
Same spacing as above, but this time we play a max-tile Acid Jet facing the target -> 7 tiles contribute towards Hex -> 4+7 = 11 damage Hex

Pretty strong! And of course, other wizards will buff the damage more, and if against warriors they'll want to get close -> you get full value off of the acid sprays / jets. Hmm. If Hex's damage got boosted by # of acid tiles within 3 squares of target, at max range, Acid Spray contributes nothing, while Acid Jet adds 5 damage to Hex. But of course, any closer and suddenly Hex damage goes way up again. As much as I like the # of acid tiles within x squares of target idea, I think this makes me lean towards # of acid tiles on board / 2 for bonus damage. And maybe base damage of 3 on Hex as well (it's Acid, after all!).

 

Should just throw out that there are a lot of counters to acid buff. A single smoke bomb can totally spanner a good setup, and a cleansing burst will rob it of a lot of buff.

 

I actually ran a build using a Wizard loaded with Smoke Bombs meant to counter Acid but found I still had trouble with Acid, so I don't think these cards are simple and effective counters. The problem is that even though one Smoke Bomb can counter up to 25 tiles of Acid (in practice you'll probably very rarely clean that many tiles in one Smoke Bomb), you'd need a whole lot of Smoke Bombs to counter builds focused around Acid and if you're running that many Smoke Bombs then you're losing out against a lot of other builds where that many Smoke Bombs have little value. Similarly, a Cleansing Burst can at most remove 9 tiles, which isn't a lot when three Acid Wizards can create over 30 tiles of acid in two turns, and unlike Smoke Bomb Cleansing Burst doesn't have as much other uses so it's status as a counter is very questionable.

Maybe it was poor playing on my part, but the way I see it the degree of counters you'd need to pack in your deck to effectively counter Acid is so high that it means you're much less well-equipped against other parties. As I see it that means Acid is far too meta-warping in its current form.

 

Oh potentially - I'm just testing acid against as many things as I can right now to see how it stacks up. I'll report back.