Post-CM Feedback

So the update's been there for a while already, I thought I'll start by saying - the game's refreshed and there's a lotta cool new stuff, but at the same time, I want to say some things should be tweaked a bit.

- Howl - Can we make it so that you can't get Howl from Howl? Self-heals on warriors are extremely thin ice kind of territory, so when someone's on healing spree (see what I did there?) this can turn the tide of the game in the worst fashion.

- Shifting Block - For something that's a silver card I'm not sure we should have a chance to be punished by getting a Zombie form from that. I'd say getting a spirit is already a meh thing.

- Vanguard - Make it not trigger on steps that aren't used to attack and...
- Wind Dancer - Make it trigger on steps that aren't used to attack. Simply because the former is way too potent on a stepping triple warriors and the latter is a rather non-existant buff to steppers. Especially because the only way you can get Vanguard and Leadership is via Alpha Positioning. I have considered a quality swap - silver to bronze and vice versa - for these two cards, but it might be a bit too extreme.

- Werewolf Form - Swap Massive Jaws with Cowardly Strike - For something that gets All Out Attack this thing gets way too many high-end attacks. Cowardly Strike doesn't necessarily change a lot - it's a powerful attack... but only if you're able to take a good position.

- Spirit Form - Swap Beam Of Hate with Fork (or, if that's underpowered - Contagion) - Now that's slightly risky, but it would make Spirit Form less of a laughing stock than it currently is. Multiple-target Curse Of Fragility, Unholy Curse or Doom.

Overall I'd just make Fork playable after changing it to "keep" or something.

- Vampire's Kiss - now that it heals 1 instead of 2 for every damage dealt it just feels way too similar to Invigorating Touch. So maybe let's just rework it somehow? How about making it an attachment for your allies which gives them Heal 1 for every attack that ends up hitting an opponent and Heal 1 at the start of the turn? It's different from what we have and gives even more new options. I think that "remove stuff" mechanism is just overdoing it for priests. Vamps should have their weaknesses somewhere.

- Silver Bolt - damage from 6 to 5? Sorcerous Blast is almost useless compared to current Silver Bolt. That and opponents often make themselves even more vulnerable to said bolt.

I guess that's all I thought about for now.

 

or changed from attack to attack/assist

 

Agreed, although I've seen very little zombie play in MP so far, and this block maybe only once. (Maybe if I saw more, I'd disagree? Who knows.) Poison and Stun are their only real benefits off the top of my head, but the Form is a handicap instead of a boost... From a 3+ silver quality block... $:^ \ Just in concept, that seems bad.

Thematically, I don't know about Werewolves getting Cowardly Attack. $;^ b

Seriously, perhaps the main OP Werewolf fix could be merely getting rid of AOA from their decks. People bring Armor counters, but how often does someone get Massive + AOA + AOA? I know I one-shotted a dwarf priest one match. That was painful for me. $:^ ` (To answer the question, I've drawn the combo at least twice; once from my own limited Lycanthropy collection iirc, and the other from an opp Walpurgis Night for sure.) Very little can stop that; but even without the Penetrating, Vicious Thrust easily becomes a 28 damage Step, nevermind whatever other Melee damage Attacks you might draw from your non-wolf deck.

What? No?

There's already so little incentive to play elf wizards* -- remember that they lost the often-much-needed power of Elven Maneuvers and therefore Cautious Mobility. The fact that they're the only ones who get a Silver damage boost is nice. Opponents practically can't make themselves more vulnerable to Sorcerous Blast (which wouldn't also affect every other damaging card anyway, including Silver Bolt), but the non-Silver-counters are generally great against everything else (including Sorcerous Blast of course).

*Now that The Strongarm sees much more ranked usage (due again to EM/CM nerf -- on this, I agree with @HerselfTheElf), people may half-joke about an elf wiz being one Pulverizing Hack short of a dwarf warrior, but realistically, seriously, an elf wiz is only two much more used now Strong Hacks short of a dwarf warrior -- with the aforementioned additional difficulty to escape. $:^ \ Likewise, who needs to Step Attack through your Smoke into your Pushback Parry when Vengeance will get them there for free? My Smoke Ninjas are dead. (No joke, I'm gonna eventually start a thread for all my beloved parties I've had to retire for balances.) It's hard enough to play an elf wizard already. (Kudos to the two nutjobs out there I've seen playing triple.)

Meanwhile, Sorcerous Blast can get Hard to Block from multiple, stackable, cheap Arcane Skill boosts. Silver gets zero Hard to Block. Sorcerous Blast can be boosted right past Unreliable Block (defeating Wind Dancer altogether) whereas Silver Bolt can't. Sorcerous Blast can even be boosted right past Shield Block. Also, I know of no card in the game that targets Arcane damage for Immunity. EDIT: Sorry, Adapted To Arcane. $E^ P

They're each silver quality, damage 6, range 6, Magic attack type. They're boostable mostly in the same ways, but also in a different way with different costs. I see no need to change these relative to each other atm.

Regards,
Bob

 

I second your thoughts on zombies, howl,and werewolf in general.

I have noticed how much games at high elo, revolve around player warriors running as many howl as possible, along with lyncantrhopy. A warrior transformed to werewolf not only has effectively base reliable mail, but can also draw monster hide, and potentially self-heal chaining into more attacks / heals or even a mighty charge. Making them nigh-unkillable as well as vicious warriors. Because from being on the other side, there's nothing more frustrating than choosing to focus ALL your attacks on a wolf and get them down to low enouhg health to finish, only for a greater heal / double howl to bring back to over half again, psychologically that's really tough.

Very few things deal with werewolf form without crippling your build, besdies inquisitors strike, and that's a narrow card.

So possibilities:

-what if there was a lunging silver strike? "Silver lunge". Mobile silver melee attack would really be nice counter to mobile wolves.
-What if howl had a clause, like "...character may not use this card if you ahve howled {twice} already this turn".
-Also, I second what Bob said above, What if silver bolt had "..increase damage by 2/3 if target has a form card attached.". Otherwise I think silver bolt its only useful against non-werewolf nightling characters, and therefore a niche item, sad for a potentially strong uncommon.

I also have never seen silver bolt on wizards at high ranks. Sorry if this seems mostly negative, but I believe in working ground up since, overall I have been really impressed with most of the other cards and items from Mitternacht, great work!

And finally, surely werewolf boots should now have something like prowl as one of the cards??

 

Werewolf boots are the Halloween reskin of Garalem's boots from the base set, there was no Prowl card then.

As for the actual topic of the thread, I wholeheartedly suppport Shifting Block not changing you into a zombie, due to selfish reasons of owning a currently unplayable Volkov's Shifting Shield.

 

For clarity's sake, I figure this means Christoff seconds what I wrote about Silver Bolt, and then also has those other remarks to say about its quality (which of course I didn't say).

I actually don't believe Silver Bolt's damage needs to be changed at all. It's range 6, damage 6, counterplay to forms and to the current most popular deck condenser / token cheapener, selectively boosted only by elves (giving incentive to play them), counterplayable in various ways, and a nice mid-range silver quality. Sounds good to me.

Fwiw, remember to compare to other cards of like quality.

• Devastating Spark is silver quality at range 6, Hard to Block 2, damage 4. That's two less than either Sorcerous Blast or Silver Bolt, but Hard to Block and with targeted damage boost traits.
• Laser Bolt is silver quality at range 6, damage 4+Minor Erratic (meaning 5-7 + 1/3 chance of 1 of the 4 Malfunctions). That's on average the same as Sorcerous / Silver, with possible handicaps that of course can damage allies and discard attacks, but are often hoped for to further damage the enemy (albeit usually not Explosion on a wizard) or to steal a Cantrip pass.

Which, actually, makes me think of Penetrating Bolt. It's range 8, damage 3 Penetrating, Arcane damage (easily boostable to Hard to Block). In comparison, that actually makes sense at silver quality. Unfortunately, perhaps. $;^ J (But, y'know, compare the damage and range of Puncturing Stab and Powerful Hack. Ouch. (That even makes me want to dig deeper into the +/- for such wide ranges. But another day. Falling asleep as it is.))

 

Sorry Bob, I misread your point about silver bolt

 

@FinalCheetah mentioned something to us Sorcererers that I hadn't thought about before. In short, Werewolves' handicap isn't really a handicap.

Yeah. Isn't that something

• Spirits have a handicap which reveals armor-or-not (potentially knocking off any non-Keeps), then maybe inflicts 1 HP of self-damage, then has potential to damage the opps later (and potentially allies or self much later).
• Vampires have a handicap which has potential to seriously hurt them without help from Armor, albeit they are built to suck that life right back up; careful play has potential to alleviate this damage.
• Werewolves have a handicap that operates 100% differently. It doesn't self-hurt at all and, more likely/often than not, acts as yet another reason opps would feel like they can't kill them. $:^ | EDIT: I'm aware, counterplay is to attempt to control that wolf's location to remain adjacent to its allies, but that often involves enemy zones of control, meaning everyone's gonna feel the effect anyway unless you just happen to be skilled at control wizards.

 

Werewolves also have no chances to draw blocks btw.

 

Right, none of the Forms do (unless I've missed something), although Vampires can react via Swarm of Bats.

 

Yeah, it seems like werewolves should have some sort of frenzy-caused damage.

 

And spirits don't need to get close to their enemies to attack, so fly works as their "defensive" card.

 

Talking about Blind Rage or something else?

 

Not sure, just seems to fit thematically with a werewolf, ha.

 

@gulo gulo: It is funny how I keep incorrectly assuming Lycanthropic Form is going to hit me harder like Battle Rage, ha.

This should probably go into the bugs forum. What do you folks think? I wrote this up as a warning to someone trying to make the whispered-about Pathfinding+Ancient Grudge combo work.

~~

If your Medium's Garb creates Ethereal Form, you potentially kill your combo. Not only is there the obvious risk of skipping Pathfinding, but there's the issue of created cards being destroyed instead of discarded (for Ancient Grudge).

When a Form creates a card (with the game remembering which cards you've replaced from your own deck), that card is destroyed instead of discarded. I learned this the super annoying way when an enemy Walpurgis gave me Spirit and Grudge, and 2-3 rounds later, I'd gained NOTHING to work on for the Grudge I saved.

Meaning, unless this gets fixed in the future somehow, this is yet another antisynergy CM introduced and yet another way Spirits get the short end of the Formed stick.

~~

I believe this is a bug and not just a suggestion because I distinctly recall a Twitter announcement state that the game would start remembering which cards from your deck got replaced when the Form creates the replacements. It seems the intention is for the discard number to go up. Otherwise, frankly, why even bother giving Spirits Ancient Grudge? I suspect @Jon and @Flaxative actually want Spirits to gain its power like normal and expected, instead of utterly thwarting its power.

 

This poked me towards thinking of a potential bug (which it is not).
But what if you take Ethereal Form and play Pathfinding? Because you dont actually draw from "your" deck - you take cards from an infinite ""virtual"" deck that does not apply to your real one, and so infinate loop!
Sadly not as I realised only after I tested it - each form has at least one type of move card but it was fun while it lasted (which is longer than I expected):

Spoiler: Battle Log

Emaedril goes searching for movement cards
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Traveling Curse.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Creature of the Night.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Unholy Curse.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Doom.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Traveling Curse.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Acid Jet.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Acid Jet.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Ethereal Form.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Ancient Grudge.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Beam of Hate.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Ancient Grudge.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Ethereal Form.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Boo!.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Ethereal Form.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Unholy Curse.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Memory Loss.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Traveling Curse.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Ancient Grudge.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Boo!.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Unholy Curse.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Beam of Hate.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Boo!.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Ethereal Form.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Boo!.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Ethereal Form.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Ancient Grudge.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Creature of the Night.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Beam of Hate.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Hex of Dissolution.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Memory Loss.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Beam of Hate.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Hex of Dissolution.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Memory Loss.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Boo!.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Doom.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Beam of Hate.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Acid Jet.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Traveling Curse.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Doom.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Traveling Curse.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Curse of Fragility.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Beam of Hate.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Beam of Hate.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Curse of Fragility.
Emaedril drew a card.
Emaedril discarded Beam of Hate.
Emaedril drew a card.
Gary passed.

 

You recall wrong unfortunately. Ancient Grudge used to be more powerful, and it stayed a spirit card due to flavor reasons when we nerfed it. *shrug*

 

From a SP perspective, I'd like to see Ancient Grudge boosted a bit as it's a dead card most of the time. Most SP games don't go on long enough for it to become a decent choice, but the MP experience (apart from QD) would be different I suppose. In SP it's not got much more value than a block checker in my experience.

 

It doesn't exactly kill the combo, but it does do more harm than good. Note that while the form cards don't go to your discard, you can hold onto them to discard real cards from your deck.

 

I get the flavor. The flavor's awesome. That's part of the jaw-dropping disappointment when I realized 2-3 rounds had gone by with my patiently saving the card without receiving any of the 7-10-or-so damage; it was still at 0-2 damage iirc. Looks like Spirits don't hold any Grudge at all really. They just talk about it a little. Sometimes. Ancient Quibble.

https://twitter.com/RudolphoCH/status/797204699107749888 + https://twitter.com/RudolphoCH/status/797204700860915712

?? $:^ `

~~~

I get much more use out of Ancient Grudge in Campaign. If I go in Firestorming everything to ashes round 1, then no, I don't get anything out of it. If I go in with an adventuring party, like a 1/1/1 or something, then I have the opposite experience: much, much longer battles, like 7 rounds no problem. With that, I can build to get the combo every couple/few battles (with my elf cleaning up with other spells while waiting for it).

I joined a three-person co-op for Gladatorial Finals and did plenty of damage in the first couple battles, and then in the last I drew the combo and said, I'll take out the dwarf priest. Wild Run from one corner of the map to the other, Ancient Grudge for the one-shot. However, this wizard's deck would probably kill her in no time in an actual MP battle.