Hello, I'm interested in your thoughts on the relative power levels of the starter packs. Which one is the best and the worst? Which ones need improving or nerfing?
Fierce Dwarf is definitely the strongest with its durability and high damage out putt. The weakest in my opinion is Holy Healer, while it is a awesomely cool party it has virtually no damage making it almost impossible to win. What would make holy healer more viable i think is if one was a buffer/fighter one was a true healer and one was using mostly drain attacks.
Worth noting is that both me and Dugrim love the dwarf pack as it currently is and don't actually want it changed but the balance issue is just too big. Preferably i would still see the others buffed but either way i think it needs to be fixed before release or there will be problems. As a side note melvins party is noticably stronger than the others he has crazy damage output while being dwarfy and durable. This could still be fixed by buffing the others but i don't think they should differ as much as they seam to do.
I have to chime in and agree that Fierce Dwarf is the best. Right now it's at the point where I'd recommend that anyone playing spend some of their free pizza on that pack just to get the items. It just has some items that are really, really good - probably too good for a starter. Notably Rageblood Dagger, Incense Of Roiled Air, and St. Xarol's Axe. Especially Rageblood Dagger. If nothing else, that one should be removed from the starter.
Rageblood is too good in general it needs to be reworked and that pains me to say because i have like 8 different team ideas based on that item. The drawbacks it pays to have so many good cards are actually barely drawbacks. The other items you mention shouldn't even register on a op scale so i don't really know why you picked them specifically to be honest.
I honestly think it would still be too good as encumber is very limited but yes that is a big deal and pushes it even further.
The more i look for what breaks the party the more it comes down to two things. The hp of dwarfs which is a thing lets be honest and then the big one being not the rage dagger it self but the vicious thrust step 2 penetrating 7 damage is huge. Penetrating attacks should be keept smaller in damage scale and so should move attacks. The fact that you can buff stack so you do 15 penetrating damage per attack with blocks as your only way to stop it makes it far too deadly for such a easily accessible attack. If i where to remake this card i would make it a spear attack giving it range 1 and the same damage which would probably putt it in a good place for its quality and rarity. When you disengage from a fight and someone can follow you and do half your hp in a single card that is not fair as a card that appears more often than once on a item(green/purple quality). I have known this for some time but my love for the card has blinded me too much. Feel free to tell me if and why I'm wrong or right as i think this really needs to be fixed and would bring the dwarf party much closer to par with the others.
I don't think the card needs to be nerfed - the item using it might have to be switched out from the dwarf starter pack though - to balance it vs the others.
That will still have the item being dominant as soon as people find it i really think its too strong by a lot. That said mass frenzy is bordering on the unfair with how much damage it can add in a turn especially with penetrating attacks and i have to wonder if adding 2 wouldn't be enough but its hard to tell. The main point is armor being devalued by all these attacks being high damage and penetrating which has made me not waste talents on armor ever since it doesn't do much even for the good high ones. You should see how much of a do it all card that is in pvp penguin the reason you can load up on as many as you want is that its a walk if you need a walk a heavy penetrating attack if you need that and a step attack if you need that. Which also devalues the "drawback" since you can just burn them as walks to not take damage at end of turn.
Well, this is a discussion about starter pack power - not what cards needs to be nerfed, imho. And finding powerful items is part of the meta game after all, so I don't have a problem with it's existence - esp if step / encumberance get sorted to allow counter-measures.
Fair enough lets agree to disagree about vicious thrust and save that for another discussion and agree to agree that rage blood dagger is too good for a starter.
Harro. Before I give my opinion of the starter packs, can someone answer this. I am pretty new to this game having started 2 nights ago so I might have missed this but... a) Is it intended to be able to "move" via step when you are over encumbered? I can't help but feel as though mages are not very useful except for troll mage build (whirlwind, smoke, illusion). Chill -> lava tile does not work when they have either the daggers or any step card. Damage mage doesn't seem to be as strong as the troll mage in addition to being compared to other options. b) Are you supposed to be able to use the daggers as 2 free steps(provided you don't have an allie at the end. ouch XD) for more mobility?(applies for any step card)
As it currently stands the encumber thing is being considered but currently working as intended for now and the free step is intended as far as i know.
I feel like the dwarf warriors (and to lesser extent dwarf) priests with step cards are clearly dominating pvp for several reasons: The default move card disadventage is compensated by step cards, which leaves the higher hps as a bonus. They can't hardly be kited, since even when an enemy moves away they can just close the gap and eat half the enemies hp away silmutanously. There is hardly a counter to them, due to encumbering functioning as is and block cards being so limited (a hero can have at least twice as many attack cards as block cards)
While I totally agree that with how step/encom works currently, Dwarf is by far the best race (though Lance has a pretty annoying elf build he was working on). The thing to keep in mind is also how can one make the races uniquely different so that there is lots of opportunities for emergent gameplay so re-playability will be high. I have not thought this through since I am busy with a project but, just as an aside, what about a rock paper scissor system? Perhaps not to that extreme, but it would provide the foundation for an evolving meta. There are other options/tweaks that could offer differences, however they have to be capable of adding a noticeably enjoyable feature for the player. I'll think on this a bit when I have more free time.
