Castle Mitternacht Armchair Balance Thread

Flax doesn't want this over in the playtest area...

So.

I don't play PvP, but I've fooled around a bit with the new items in SP, and read what the others are saying about their PvP games, and now I have a few suggestions.

• Ancient Grudge should be Unholy damage and not appear on arcane items.
• Boo! should be Sonic damage, and maybe give Wild Run instead of Dash (or how about Reflexive Teleport?).
• Daylight should be Silver damage.
• Lycanthropic Form should not prevent Silver damage.
• Ethereal Form should give Immunity to untargeted, non-Silver damage.
• Swarm Of Bats should be changed to Fly 2 (both parts) and either be Emerald quality or add a die roll.
  
• Inquisition Bolt should change to: "If target has a Form card attached, increase this card's damage by 2 for each card in target's hand and reveal those cards."
• Pathfinding should be changed to max 6 cards discarded.
• Hex Of Dissolution should not remove armor.

I've got an idea about swapping effects between Vampire's Kiss and Walpurgis Night, but I'll wait to see what the next build does to them first.

 

Those are some crazy changes.
Ancient Grudge: I like the suggestion someone else gave, which is that it does more damage based on the round. I am thinking 2 + 2 per round. So at round 3 it does 2 more damage then Sorcerous Bolt.
Boo!: It doesn't need a buff, I have gotten wrecked by it multiple times.
Swarm of Bats: Are you trying to kill this card? No one plays Reflexive Teleport, after this change Swarm of Bats with have 3 more rating then it just to remove the dice roll and the keyword Keep!
Inquisition Bolt: I don't like how this currently works, it doesn't make sense because some cards with vampirism are part of the set some aren't etc.
Pathfinding: This isn't OP just Ancient Grudge with this is.
Hex of Dissolution: Should use a base damage nerf, maybe also change the scaling.

Note most of these are based around my playtesting.

 

I thought I was nerfing it.

The die roll is the reason no one plays RT (I tried once), compare with Surging Shield Block and Uncanny Dodge.

Does anyone ever play Pathfinding for its intended effect?

 

Boo! is mostly an offensive card meaning that giving a worse card (Wild Run is worse then Dash in my opinion, also the card database agrees) is buffing it.

You are right this is a lot like Surging Shield Block except this has fly, which shouldn't cost 6 points of rating, oh and more importantly you also lose the option to move toward the target unless you want to get hit by the attack.

Pathfinding is badly itemized so I only use it when playing handicap quests, which it is handy for.

 

Thematically speaking nothing beats Panic. (obviously that would make Boo! crazy strong)

 

Have fun with this I guess

 

Since you are writing a topic out of developer use i will write other thing
I can say to you that a card like Ancient Grudge will not be broken in a quick Draw since in a quick draw you can never have more than 6 card in discard. Of course dealing 7 damage in QD with a bronze card is good but you can always take a sorcerous bolt with range 6... so dealing 5 damage with this card would be absolutely normal. And you often will have 1 trait or 1 other card in hand like armor so often you will do only 6 damage that is a shorter range and stronger sorcerous bolt. And you have to wait before using it so you may draw it when you need a quick attack.

Other than QD.... you need the right item to equip it! so you can talk about AG item many of that have card hard to play like force cannon or force cone... i think nobody really play that card in multiplayer. Only item that look interessing to me is the one with 2 grudge and lava pool that is nice since it is an emerald card.
It is the first time that i see an item with yellow token having double of the strong card of the item with a minor token... the first time that is worth spending yellow token in arcane item using minor token for the staff. so that is a nice change but maybe having 8 AG for 4 yellow token is too much since there are cheap good staff like staff of chask that leave you with another 2 minor token for other item like arcane skill and racial skill that can be used to power up AG But i don't fear racial and arcane skill to power up AG since i failed all my try to build a perfect triple wizard with AG.

 

One grudge is easy to fit from poltergeist cape, harness is terrible, but telekinesis for no token is solid and having a control wizard that is randomly able to deal 15-16 damage is neat when everybody runs heals.

I also think that vial of spite has potential for the same reason, force cannon is meh, but grudge and tk make up for it.

 

using armor mean that you can't use spell skill for cape of dark magic so you can only draw it more easily from inspirational think + 3 card and from other human leadership.
Cape of dark magic can also discard some card from deck if you staff is full of block so a theorical + 5 damage without using pathfinding.
Having 3 AG in deck is little for me since it is hard to draw them at the right moment so you need to be simply lucky or to have a good deck even without it.

I played many match with vial of spite. i some match i used very well force cannon since it was the right map and i won that match.
In other match i was surrounder by warrior and force cannon was almost a dead card. Expecially when warrior have vengeance since they can move in a place where force cannon can't slide them Of course you can't use cannon to TK opponent behind a flood or acid.
So it potential is in... the right map and there is the need of a strategical choice since having TK stall the match... and when you draw force cannon your TK barrier fail so you need other form of defence other than the TK to use these arcane item well...


The best cost/effect item... i think is the one with 2x Flood + AG.
Old item have 2x flood + useless card. So this is a stronger copy of that old item. the item with 3x flood cost a major token.

 

Well if you are running ag you are either using pathfinding, a lot of leaderships or expecting the game to go low, the first deck is a glass cannon, the second can leadership away the cannon and the third is probably playing something else that keeps warriors at bay better.

Ag isn't really for killing warriors anyway and both cards buy you time to safely buff by one the grudge.

The issue is that you are choosing to put two copies of flash flood in your deck instead of tk. And flash flood is tricky to use too.

I think that putting ancient grudge on arcane items has it's logic btw: arcane grudge grows with the number of control you have since it prolongs the match and most good control comes from arcane items.
The best staffs with control are mullik that is pretty tricky to use, feistaff and whiterune that come with two noncontrol cards and pearwood that sill forces you to run mighty spark for two mayors compared to ring of appropiation+asmok telekinetic chain that give you 5 control cards for 1 minor and spiked terrain that has control implications.

 

Yes i agree that but when you use flash flood for other reason the grudge is a very good add to your deck if you manage to make your flood gain time
Vial of spite would be almost like a luke's iron hand if had 2x TK + AG but with the force cannon.. is flawed force cannon need a positional play similiar to flood since you need to use it in the right map at the right time. And you risk to get blocked or to trigger vengeance that are both bad thing since vengeance can move warrior in a place where Cannon can't move him
Maybe a good balance is to play 2x AG + Flash Flood and 2x Luke hand. playing 4 vial give you more grudge but 2 less TK. Playing 2 vial + 2 Luke's of course give you a lot of TK so it is still good since you can discard cannon with leadership.

 

• Boo!: why does it create a Fright card? Couldn't it just be the Boo! card attaching itself with the same effect? Does it need to be removable by Lateral Thinking or Gene Therapy? Some players might not remember exactly what a Fright card does when they see a Boo! card.

• Forms: is it normal that 'drawing cards' while having a form does not count towards the draw limit?

• Inquisition Bolt: not clear enough as it is. Something should be done about it.

• It is hard to make profit of Daylight. Healing allies without ennemies requires cautious positionning, and it does not even damage spirtits or werewolves with their armor. Probably not woth its current quality.

• Vanguard seemed extremely powerful, since it also affects step moves. Just saying that after I lost a dwarf priest round one while only racial moves and step attacks had been played.

• I must say I have not seen many people testing Fleet.

• Hex Of Dissolution. It is one thing to see the ennemy peeing acid all over his side of the board and to guess what is coming, it is another thing to stay away from 3 wizards with 6-range 12-damage attacks. Maybe the damage boost could be from tiles only within range 5 of the target. Armor removal sounds ok to me, getting this card from spirit form would be a waste if you're not into acid.

• Ancient Grudge is the most sensitive spot in this new expansion.

First thing, it is a not-exactly-short-ranged direct damage card on arcane item (which we have been told to avoid for Aloyzo's Arsenal).​

Then, it is a bronze card that can quickly deal massive damage (for wizards). You can no longer just scare the wizards away from the victory squares, you have to hunt down every single one of them, else they might come back and OS you. Pathfinding, although you cannot have more than one of those in your deck, can make Ancient Grudge instantly deadly by emptying your deck at the same time as giving you the cantrip move to catch an opponent unaware. Loosing from this strategy must be extremely frustrating. But maybe we just have not seen enough Cushionning Armors or Toughness during this playtesting.
The picture gives it an Unholy look, but it is arcane damage and benefits from Spark Generator and Spark Inductor to bypass blocks, and it is thus even more dangerous.
Last but not least, this card pushes players towards playing control decks, which is one of the most annoying thing to face in this game in my opinion. How are you supposed to win if the opponent has more control over your characters than yourself?

So, what can be done about it? Should the damage boost ratio be reduced? Should it compare the target's discard pile to yours? Or should the damage just be capped?​

 

I don't see this as a problem, since draw limits are to stop infinite draw decks, and Forms don't give you the cards you need for that. You might be able to do something with giving an ally Ethereal Form then forcing them to draw lots of cards to flood your opponents with Traveling Curse.

 

I think that should be capped to 8 maximum damage. maybe 10 damage if the deck has 30 card in discard since it is unlikely it will happen and deck maybe reshuffled countering the card
But 8 damage for a range 4 arcane item is very good. the maximum damage from short range arcane item is the combo path of knife + force cannon that can deal up to 10 damage range 5 and it is still a tricky combo. a force cannon dealing pure damage range 5 should deal more than 4 damage so i think 8 damage considering the time to charge it up is still very good for a bronze card.
I have played without pathfinding of course since it is clearly a single card luck

I think you are talking about the pathfinding combo since when 2 of your wizard are dead opponent take 4 star immediatly and need only to stay in the VP 2 turn to win.
So last wizard has little chance to revenge with the OP card with no pathfinding. or at least in about 15 match never happened to me.
Of course if only a wizard is killed only real problem is that leadership lose power to build discard pile so the other 2 wizard are still a problem since dealing 8+ damage from arcane item is still very much if you have other magic attack in deck maybe from the staff

Yeah too much control is a problem. of course if a player own 4 luke's iron hand is because he like to play with much control and often he can win only by using control. the match that i won controlling and then using grudge can be won using only telekinesis or other card. at least a good ratio of them since dealing 8+ damage still help to kill elf warrior or other fast moving char hard to control.
I can also add that a player that is using arcane item for grudge for every arcane item used has 1 less asmod chain or 1 less luke's iron hand if he own so many legendary

 

Punishing Bolt

 

Now i have to do a serious question:

There are now deck that someone may hate to see in the game and has still to be tested?
I have tried to build deck around the Ancient Grudge triying to abuse of some item to build very boring control deck but since i see i lose so often i think nobody will play this deck so it is good.
There are other type of deck that can be hated if enter in the real server? post here your idea

 

I was planning on seeing how 3 arrogant armor, lateral thinking warriors would do in light of all the new form attachments. I'm away this week so I can't playtest but that would be my suggestion for playtesting purposes. I'd also want to playtest a unholy wellspring vampire deck. That new vampires kiss looks like it's begging for a balance but what do I know. I'd love something that could help bump my vamps out of the 1300s

 

For smoother coop play, Vanguard should move teammate instead of push. It'd let coop players have more control over their own characters instead of being shuffled around by others multiple times each round.

(A side effect would be that halts are more effective against vanguard.)

 

Walpurgis Night is now extremely weaker since it has become a mandatory action. Not only you can no longer wait for your Arrogant Armor or for the ennemies to cast heir buff/debuff, but you also loose priority while your opponent gets extra cards. I doubt it will see much use until it gets at least cantrip.

 

I didn't know it has been made into a mandatory action. I don't see it could live up to it's silver value as a mandatory action. The card effects both teams in the same way; so any advantage in using it comes from the timing and situation. If you can't control the timing, it's just not useful - and it costs you your turn to play it. That sounds like a handicap card to me.