The power of Vicious Thrust

This is only considering pvp so keep that in mind if you bother to read my wall of text.


The more i pvp the more obvious it becomes to me that this card seams miss matched compared to other cards. Its a walk if you need to walk and its a high damage penetrating attack when you need that while also being a step attack if you need to cower some ground and then attack.

With encumber not working against step attacks it basically counters everything encumber, running away, bashes ( silly bashes i step back)Ground effects at end of turn after you supposedly wasted your move, Blind Rage( no need to take damage when you can just spin in place and waste it) and it makes armor close to meaningless, the fact that it can even be used to move around someone granted not from a frontal position makes it even counter its only counter blocks to certain degree. This makes it too good in general for a silver quality card that yo can find 3x on a rare with no "true" drawback. The fact that it is penetrating further making it stronger since there are traits to buff penetrating damage.

Lets compare it to similar cards. Nimble Strike which for the price of two more squares of movement loses both a damage and penetrating while still being noticeably harder to find on items. This card while traveling further using movement that can be blocked by positioning doesn't devalue armor or get the bonus from Impaler and is rare. Penetrating Stab which loses a point of damage and the step component for a reach of 2 is about as hard to find if not slightly harder while it still gets the bonus of Impaler it also can not be used as a move or to chase someone down and still it does less damage.

If it was up to me i would remove the movement component and make it a range 2 attack with the same stats if i wanted to nerf it noticeably or simply make it step one range 2 6-7 damage if i wanted to keep it around the same power level but make it less versatile. Or if you are looking to make no real change to the card it at the very least needs to go up in rarity and be made a rare so by the time people can fill there warriors with them answers can be found.

I would love to hear peoples opinion and i might very well be completely in the wrong as i write this but i do feel that Vicious Thrust as it stands is basically the best attack there is to stack on a warrior and that even with encumber being "fixed" it would still be in the lead if not at the top.

 

I agree, it does feel quite strong, perhaps too much so. Especially since I somehow always fail to remember it's a Step 2 attack and not a Step 1.
Seriously. I've gotten hit by that attack so many times in PvE just because I misremember the range and stop too close to the Vicious Thrust using enemies

 

Agreed, this is the single most versatile and by extension powerful attack in MP currently. In open terrain it allow you to easily sidestep behind a character voiding any blocks, and penetrating their armor for massive amounts of damage.

Some modification seems necessary. As Wozarg suggested reducing the step, removing the penetrating, increasing it's rarity, or some other change is certainly in order.

It's been such a mainstream card in MP that I've started using Entangling Roots just to prevent it from being played that turn.

 

It actually outperforms all green attacks i can think off, if not in basic power by availability. Lance is correct that you can shut it down with halts but they are generally pretty weak and/or hard to come by as well as also shutting down all other attacks assuming you stand outside melee range.

 

Well when encom finally gets fixed, the damage will get added up when you have that trait on. combine that with the possibility of having the dagger where you lose extra health whenever you lose health and that might be a very valid counter.

 

You will still be able to use it with encumber to reduce the self burn so that won't help. But yes the 3 in 18 stab will be slightly more hurtful.

 

Oh I see. you are saying stand in place and swing. I was thinking it would behave more like halt.

 

In my opinion the card is good, but not unbalanced.
The unbalance come by the "step bug", not by the card itself, because without encumber only stun and halt can stop this card (and other annoying step cards too).
It's 7 damage, penetrating, with step 2.
Good, but nothing else, alone.
There's a lot of combo with it, yes, but there's a lot of other combos against it, or better.
As I said, the only unbalance with that card, and the other step cards too, is the "step bug".
If the devs fix it we will see that this is a good Uncommon card, but nothing else.