[Suggestion] Frost magic rework - what if frost spells forced discard of movement cards instead?

Instead of adding an encumber debuff, I think frost cards should cause movement cards to be discarded. The level of discard should vary with the power level of the card as follows:

Freeze - Target discards all movement cards.
Frost Jolt - Target discards 2 movement cards at random.
Chilling Rime - Target discards oldest movement card.
Cold Snap - Target discards a movement card at random.

The different races would now suffer equally against frost effects, whilst the raw power of frost magic would be reduced significantly by removing any lingering effects with duration 2. Frost jolt is still a strong card, well placed ones garnering card advantage, and in the right situation a Freeze can be game-changing.

 

When proposing a change to core card mechanics you should make sure you spell out the motivation for the change. ie what is wrong with encumber as it stands? Once you have a good set up it will give context for your proposed change and allow readers to see it in a new light. As a 'what if' what you have is fine, but without context I'm sure people will say 'If it ain't broke'.

 

While the idea is interesting, this particular bit is an argument AGAINST it. Some races have more health, some have more speed: reduce the power of speed, and Elves will lose much of their point.

Again, if people are concerned about Encumber attachments, I'd propose that the game include more ways to deal with them. Encumber is an interesting system, and could totally work, so long as people can DO something with the attachments as part of normal strategy: prevent, ameliorate, bypass, whatever, beyond loading up on a million Purge spells because that's all ya got.

 

There's always Disenchant , if you can find it. It's existence hints at better options on higher level cards. Or I guess just load up on Arrogant Armor .

Dancing Cut and Nimble Strike can keep you moving, assuming you only have one encumber enchantment. Though it does bug me you that encumber actually encourages warrior builds to focus on the move/attack cards.

 

Agreed to this post that a change in Encumbrance is necessary. It is too powerful.

Stacked Encumbrance along with Hot Spot/ Fire Wall/ Volcano is just game over.

Notice many of the top PVP players run 2 Wizards?

 

Thanks for feedback, I'll give it a shot, Evolved. I didn't want the original post to turn into a long screed, and thought most of the community was pretty much on the same page as regards encumber ie. something needs to change. Ok, here goes:

Frost magic is ubiquitous in PvP, and the best way to counter it is to incorporate it into your strategy. Why? Because it's one of a small number of crowd control effects* in the game, and by far the most devastating of that small bunch. Here's a (by no means exhaustive) comparison

Anvil Strike - Available on warriors, stuns for one turn. Stuns stop you playing anything other than a movement card. Range 1, duration 1 damage 8 (13 if next to blocking terrain).
Winds Of War - Available to mages, choose 2 targets, slide 3 ie. move 2 targets 3 squares. Damage 1 range 6
Soothing Darkness - Available to priests, target gets encumber 1 and heals 4 a turn for 3 turns. Range 5.
Frost Jolt - Available to mages, target gets encumber 2 for 2 turns. Damage 5 range 8.

The overwhelming utility of Frost Jolt is something many of the top PvP players have recognised - this spell does everything - if you had to choose a single card to build a deck out of, wouldn't you run Frost Jolt (or Freeze for that matter)? The range and damage is excellent, the encumber will cripple a warrior's mobility, removing the threat he poses by rendering his low range strategy a failure. Furthermore, encumber will impair a vulnerable target's ability to find sanctuary, making them easy meat for your own warriors (or further barrages of offensive magic).

To me there's nothing intuitive about choosing elves because they're slightly better against encumber. Why should a dwarf lose 100% of his innate move to a Frost Jolt, whereas an elf only loses 50%? The problem is that encumber has such unwarranted influence in the game at the moment, it should never have got to the stage where we're balancing the rest of the game around it.

It's a valid choice, the available counterplay is somewhat lacking. Changing encumber should also be on the table.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowd_control_(video_gaming)

 

I agree that encumbrance is too strong right now, but i don't think a drastic change is necessary. Lower the damage on encumbrance cards, decrease the amount by 1, decrease the duration by 1 - whatever makes sense for the card in question.

 

Can't really say that I'm all that bothered with Encumber. Even though I'm running full melee party with two dwarfs. Only thing causing serious problems is Freeze. Suggested changes might make frost cards rather undewhelming, depending on what would actually be considered move card.

Mages should have some utility, considering that if a warrior gets next to a mage, mage is probably dead very fast. And all those step cards work in favor of warriors.

Well, any buffs and traits can help get rid of encumber, or even fire effects. You just need enough of them. Team moves and other pushes should also work afaik. There's few movements cards that let you get around of encumber, Charge probably being the easiest to get (atleast for dwarfs).

But few more options might not hurt.

 

To clear this up I was thinking that step cards are included - and yes the Freeze card in particular would be pretty scary. The aim is for frost to remain strong, but not obnoxiously so. Encumbered warriors already have to discard a lot of cards since so much of their utility is tied to range 1 or 2 effects - partly my idea is for the game to be more upfront about the level of card advantage frost can accrue eg. an early frost jolt on a dwarf warrior may be worth three cards of advantage (assuming no counter cards, and nothing else usable is drawn). Seems a little steep to me - even those "usable" dancing cuts and nimble thrusts are likely to be used as shuffle and walk cards - a drastic drop in effectiveness.

 

As someone who is trying to play the 3 wizards mobility strat, I can say that encumbers are not as handy as some make them out to be. Freeze certainly does everything well and should likely have the damage reduced. Even when trying to lock down the Dwarf warrior I find that an encumber card is not enough. Charge, purge, all of the move other cards, and the step cards (specifically all of the Vicious Thrust that are being run) all seem to get the warrior all the way across the map and killing at least one of my wizards on round one. Keep in mind I also pack a lot of acid sprays to try to slow people down.

I've been having such an issue getting away from anyone even with encumbers so while I agree that they may be strong (and perhaps too good at everything) they are certainly something that can be dealt with.

 

Nope.

Let's see, list of stuff that counter harmful attachments:

a) Arrogant Armor
b) Shrug It Off
c) Purge
d) Holy Presence

List of stuff that encumber has small impact on:

e) Charge
f) Sprint
g) Wild Run
h) Rushing Aura

List of stuff that are unaffected by encumber:
i) Telekinesis, Improved Telekinesis
j) Winds Of War
k) Elvish Mobility
l) Team Run, Team Shift
m) Violent Spin
n) Teleport Other
o) Whirlwind, Whirlwind Enemies
p) Retreat
q) Maze
r) Run, Team! , Shift, Team! , Team Shift , Walk, Team! , Dash, Team! , Sprint, Team! , Team Run , Scuttle, Team! and Scamper, Team!

And WIP cards like: Swap, Blink and many more ? hmm...

 

The problem is not really with the available counters to Encumbrance, the problem is that Encumbrance is just too good - it's a no-brainer to include it if you can because it makes every deck better. Helps keep melee off of caster, helps melee catch casters, helps lock characters on terrain modifiers, helps keep them off of victory squares.

Any time a technique is so effective that you always want to have it if you possibly can, it's a problem. Any time a technique is so effective that every deck design must include counters to it, that's bad for the game as a whole.

The best answer is to make it less powerful by making the trade-offs of including an Encumbrance item higher. Less damage, less encumbrance, less duration. Making counters stronger or more ubiquitous runs the risk of just making it an arms race.

 

I think Encumber is pretty cool as is. It may be slightly above average, but afaik it's not used by 1400+ players much - they've found better decks. Look there first imo, and look to the weaker decks.

 

And yet this seems to come in to some circular logic to be due to the fact that the only reason I use encumbrance (and at least 80% of my other spells) is to keep the uber buffed, mobile melee off of the casters - this warrior, it seems everyone uses and you have to plan a counter for.

 

I do find Frost Jolt in particular to be a little bit curious. It's a "good" card, which puts it on the same level as Sorcerous Blast, Surging Bolt, Fireball, Devastating Spark and Deadly Spark. Encumber 2 seems amazing for 1 damage, and seems better than either Hard to Block 2 or Penetrating. Fireball is a great spell in that set, and Surging Bolt at 3 damage I can see, the movement is awesome, but it seems to me that the encumber is more on a level with movement or penetration rather than hard to block.

Relative to Sorcerous Bolt, Frost Jolt pays one damage to get 2 extra range and encumber 2, duration 2, which seems a little bit underpriced to me. At the very least the range seems like superfluous power. I think it would still feel like a good spell at range 4, or with at 2 to 3 damage with all it's current perks.

I kind of feel this way more broadly too. I don't think cold is broken, just overtuned. A range 6 cone is *huge*, and I'm not sure why such a strong effect has such a large aoe too.

Freeze is a strong spell, but it's supposed to be a strong spell. Obliterating Hack and Obliterating Bludgeon are only one damage away from one-shotting elven mages, and two can leave even a dwarven warrior on 1 health, so green cards are supposed to be strong.

I know that it's not the way the game actually works, but you could lock someone down, hit them with 4 Freezes in a row, and if the warrior then got free and got in one single attack, the warrior would be ahead, and Obliterating Spark does more than twice as much damage.

Control always feels stronger than it really is when you're on the receiving end, because you sort of naturally rate the damage that you could be doing instead of standing there helplessly, but that's not actually the comparison. An opponent has typically given up a lot of damage to get that level of control, so if they *can't* hold you down for a good amount of time, they're well behind.

 

Actually I find this happens more often than not. I often lose one, if not two characters to a buffed/pushed warrior on round one even if encumbered. This does tend to happen moreso with non dwarf warriors though.

 

Nope. As you play, data is being captured. Devs will review and decide what is OP and what isn't. Encumber is and always will be a powerful mechanic. If there are too many of them floating around, chances are they'll tweak the drop rates.

As of now, there are only 3 staves in game that can give you 4 freezes Just saying....

 

Drop rates/rarity doesn't limit the number or impact of the items. Even if the items are consumable that would not be a way to manage their power level in multiplayer.

...if you have more than one wizard, each with two stave slots it's pretty easy to be able to cast 4 of them as you point out nicely.

 

Rarity is not a balancing tool. If anything, it just makes it worse because then the game really does become pay 2 win.