Comparing Vengeance to Sparkling Cloth Armor: * Vengance cannot be discarded with anti-armor cards, negating the main counter to Sparkling Armor. * Vengance can be consumed for a strong attack, negating one of the main drawbacks of Sparkling Armor (the lack of follow-through ability from using a round end slot to hold on to it). * Vengance never stops itself from triggering on 1 damage cards, unlike Sparkling which has a 4/6 chance of not triggering on its own vs 1 damage push cards (which is most of them). * Vengance can be in a deck up to 8 times compared to Sparkling's 1 card, making it vastly more likely to come up and making it not only plausible but likely with the right items to have multiple of them at once. How will mage teams be at all possible once Vengeance becomes common? They will be severely punished in positioning for essentially any spell other than Telekinesis, and winning against a team with a warrior you can only ever cast Telekinesis on is simply not viable.
In addition to Telekinesis, other counters are Flash Flood, Hypnotic Beacon, and Entangling Roots. But yes, Vengeance is very, very powerful.
I don't think Roots works vs Sparkling/Vengeance, and Flash Flood is only a speedbump unless terrain allows you to entirely block off a route. Hypnotic might work, though it is a pretty major investment. [Edit]: I will try using a few Hypno, and see how it goes. I am not optimistic about the chances through, since you can't have very many Hypno without a crippling amount of investment.
If you can ensure that they can't trap themselves in difficult terrain, winds and gusts work on adiacent enemies. It might also help that the only vengeance weapon with multiple movement is talissa's trident.
Unless I'm much mistaken, roots trigger after the move, which makes it an incredibly unreliable counter (given that the range of roots is only 4)
It can still be countered. The issue you are running into is that you are not a very old player. This means that legends which the older playerbase has in droves (Such as Asmod's Telekinetic Chain, Luke's Iron Hand) are now even better than they already were than the bread and butter common stuff. When "asking the experienced players" for "balance" advice the problem is that these players feel that card quality and item rarity should be directly related to it's power. Hence the nerfs to good common items such as Cautious Mobility and indirect nerfs to items such as BjSS and Runestone. Oh and of course the nerf to FoA. Can't touch Fireball, that's gold quality and rare. Let's nerf the paper card instead. You used to be able to beat even players with every legend in the game with simple BjSS elves. That isn't possible anymore since you now need to be decked out in legend gear yourself.
Nope, us old players (obviously I can't speak for all of us) don't look at the rarity as a determining factor for power. FoA (Flash of Agony) is not a common it is a rare like fireball!! At the same time as Cautious Mobility was nerfed, Apprentice Ferocity got nerfed.
I'm not saying Raging Battle or Apprentice Ferocity didn't get nerfed. But the overall gameplay now favours the older playerbase that has a large collection of specific legends and epics. It didn't start just now, after Citadel it was probably worse with Iljin/Cursed Radcannon/Searing Pain. Doesn't change the fact that wizards nowadays can't go anywhere without a bunch of Asmods and warriors are stuck waiting for Strongarm/Cedrics Vow. I didn't just say rarity. Also quality. I know it's rare as otherwise Searing Pain wouldn't be legendary.
You said: Saying "Card quality and item rarity should be directly related to it's power." is the same as saying: "Card quality should be directly related to it's power. Item rarity should be directly related to it's power." (ignore grammatical differences) I disagreed with the item rarity part of your sentence. Saying "I didn't just say rarity. Also quality." (in this context) is a red herring. Saying the quality of a card should affect the quality of the items it is on, should be assumed and therefore mentioning it is just a waste of resources.
If everything is nerfed equally then the balanced of the game will be exactly the same as before, and likewise if everything is buffed equally the balance will stay the same. Stating that a card got nerfed to argue that itemization of anything is nerfed without mentioning others nerfs or buffs can be very misleading. It can be similar to saying: "this player is winning because they have 1 move alive character then the enemy" in the context of a multiplayer match and that player has 3 character at 1 health while the enemy has 2 full health characters (obviously there can be more details worth mentioning but that's not the point).
Then why was a perfectly good uncommon item nerfed completely out of the game? Or was that just a coincidence? What about the recent inflation of power of Legendary items such as Asmods, Lukes, Strongarm while common/uncommon and even epic versions are now much weaker in comparison? How about most non-legend mage items (the few that existed) are now very useless when put up against the new cards introduced? Balance doesn't stay the same. The nerf of Maneuvers affects Rageblood dagger (rare) and inflated the power of Strongarm (No step attacks/legend) as well as reducing the value of BjSS (Vicious Thrust) while there's now Cedric's Vow that blows the OPness of Maneuvers straight out of the water. But that's a legend so it's ok I guess? The nerf of Raging Battler/Apprentice Ferocity didn't affect much (Except screw people over that used Ferocity over Raging Battler). It didn't affect the whole build of your standard dwarf, it just made them a bit weaker. How many people still run Raging Battler in high ELO? How many still use Cautious Mobility?
I don't think it was nerfed out of the game, but I can't speak for everyone, so we can't know how many people use it or not. What about the recent inflation of power of legends? False those items did not get buffed, but maybe there interactions got buffed which isn't the same thing. Low rarity items have not been nerfed. Vengeance was argued as OP and was nerfed, by only 1 damage though. In the end we players don't have direct control of the cards' balance but we can argue against balance flaws.
It was. I've watched a lot of games. Didn't see a single EM in higher ELO games. It's no longer viable at that level. And yes the interactions made them stronger. Changing EM changed more than just EW's. It changed Strongarm from "nice" to "essential". Then Cedric's Vow was added, which is almost as essential now. Without them you are at a major disadvantage. You used to be able to run Rageblood in those slots, since EW + Strongarm or Cedric's Vow would be a very bad combination and thus if you do not have those items you can run EM EW and stay with Rageblood. Now if you don't have Strongarm/Cedric's you are stuck at lower ELO. Same for Wizards and Runestone/Sensate's/Blood Locket and Lukes/Asmods/Phantom Pain. Where a common/rare would've sufficed first, you now need an epic at least (Appropriation) which still isn't good enough for top pvp and a legend is needed.
Regular old wind cards are actually pretty good against vengeance. They deal damage, trigger the vengeance guy's move, and then you get to push them around. The only control that doesn't work anymore is the force series, as you deal damage, they move in front of blocking terrain, and then get pushed. That said, vengeance is incredibly strong for its ability to move out of turn order. I tested an all-out vengeance team during CM playtesting and I only lost to wizards a couple of times. If you hate vengeance, you should really hope that Intimidating Visage doesn't get made. It is the same sort of anti-wizard nightmare.
Have ever you got vengeance + path of knives? Maybe with a 1 armor to back it up. It's hilarious seeing your dwarf soar the battlefield. Edit: what about mimetic armor...? It would be terrible!
