Your thoughts on the Races

Hey,

So I've run three parties up to about lvl 10 and I'm finding it difficult to rationalize having elves in my party. They have lower hit points, and their manuvering bonuses just don't seem to quite measure up to Dwarf's damage prevention and Human's card draw manipulation.

The only way I really see them being useful is a whole part of elves, so that card that allows all Elves to move 2 can really shine.

What do you guys think?

 

Elves can also have Dodge and Jump Back from talents, and they have the exclusive Slippery. Slippery means you don´t have to make space for Vicious Thrusts and you can just put in Obliterating Bludgeons all day since you get a Scamper every turn for 3 turns, making you essentially immune to lava and acid. Pathfinding also can essentially get three of the 5 cards i just mentioned straight from your deck and nets you some card advantage. Also, Elvish Insight is a house; knowing your opponent´s hands is WAY too valuable, specially in PvP if you fear the opponent might have something to get out of lava. And it even nets you a new card!

The "Whole Elf Mobility Party" is something but it´s not the only things elves have for them, even if their low health makes them sound less attractive. Just stay away from encumber and have a healer handy ;P

 

Few (if any) monsters can match the speed of a Dash, allowing you to simply run away while waiting to draw the cards you need. This doesn't work on all boards, so I use a dwarf/human party on those.

 

Encumber effects have been making my dwarves and humans pretty sad in PVP today. Just sayin'.

 

I'm not that experienced, but while the movement that elves have is great, in the end you have to fight to win. Humans are probably the easiest to play with a decent amount of health and decent movement to go with it. On the other extreme, dwarves (especially in PvP, I'm guessing) can easily be out-maneuvered although they have decent movement cards (like, say, charge) to close the gap to their opponents. In PvE I'd probably rate dwarves higher than elves simply because of the AI, in PvP it's possibly the other way around but I have a hard time believing that elven warriors can actually work when they don't get more evasive skills.

 

My current party is Dwarf Warrior, Human Priest and Human Wizard. I have command on both humans and charge + mobility boots on the dwarf. The extra hp on the dwarf has meant the difference between winning and losing more than once and overall the extra mobility is extremely useful. Likewise having the extra hp on my wizard has also been a factor, having cleared at least 1 map where my all I had left was a wizard with 1 hp.

However, having just finished the campaign i feel it is time to create a new party in order to take on the quests. So maybe now i will dabble with elves a little bit to get a feel for their advantages and disadvantages. Mind you this is all from a PvE perspective since i currently cant afford to buy anything more than the basic Dwarf Warrior, Human Priest, Elf Wizard package for PvP. I get the feeling that just about any party can be viable in PvP with the right build.

 

If elves are so great why do you barely see them in higher ranked MP?

I'd be curious what the usage of them is, especially in the over 1200 MP bracket. I would have to disagree with "the races are balanced" just based on what I've seen so far.

 

Well, i wouldn't know. My highest MP rating has been 1100

I don't have the cards i would like to have with Elves, but for what i know of the meta for videos I've seen and those high scored matched i've had, it seems to be about Martyr's Blessing and Dwarves with All Out Attacks. I value information highly, so i know that once i get more items to make a better team, i will be having elven Priests with Elvish Mobility and Elf Warriors armed with stabs and parries, then seeing how that goes

 

I shouldn't put a rating bracket on it, I think that's unfair.

In campaign the choice of races is a bit different, though from my multiple play throughs I still tend to think elves are the most difficult race to play. Certain levels punish characters with low HP (acorn blasts or war monkeys as an example). Low HP just isn't something you can easily solve with your item selection. Their racial cards don't seem to mitigate that added risk in anyway.

MP is more cut throat. It seems to me that you simply see fewer elves as your opponents ratings go up. I'd be very curious what the numbers are (what percentage of characters in MP are each race). You can certainly win with elves, I just think it's a bit harder and as a result you see far fewer of them.

 

The lack of hit points on elven wizards can get pretty debilitating toward the end of the single player campaign. It seems like every other monster has long (8) range attacks and burst attacks start showing up frequently on ents. I switched to human wizards for that reason. Elven warriors are sort of okay, mobile enough to close the distance if needed and able to move with 2 Heavy Armors.

As for multiplayer, I'd say the lack of hit points puts them at a definite disadvantage and access to Elven Insight (max 2 per deck) and Slippery (max 1 per deck? I think) is not enough to justify it. Dash still lets you move 2 as long as you only have one Encumber 2 effect, but that won't move you far and doesn't help step cards for warriors. Overcoming encumbrance somewhat reliably means cycling/purging it off and having a couple Sprint or Wild Run in deck. And dwarves and human can do that just as well as elves, with more hp.

 

I'm not an MP kind of guy; I rarely get to play long enough at a time to finish an MP game. I play like 6 minutes of campaign, click to a different window and work for an hour or two, and come back and finish it in chunks. But I have to say, the argument Oberon just made -- that HP can't be modified by cards, but movement totally can -- pretty much seals the argument on the theorycrafting tip.

 

mobility is NOT for everyone. Some players enjoy playing mobile champions with space control etc. Some players have a hard time with that strategy. If you don't find mobility + fragility to be your style of play, I would just go with a strategy you are comfortable with.

My opinion on elves? They're great, it feels very balanced, with the amount of space control in this game. It is especially great with massive amount of telekinesis on an elf mage.

 

I quite enjoy the mobility (I rarely play dwarves for that reason even though I think they have much better racial skills), but it's simply not an answer to the opponent having a ton of ranged attacks and being able to easily kill your (weaker) elves. I've lost track of the number of times the trees or dragon have killed my elves on the first turn. MP can offer similar challenges.

I hold to my original question though, if elves are balanced than why aren't there more of them in MP? Encumber is everywhere, which elves do much better against, and still elves are a rarity. The numbers tell a different story (and are influenced by the entire players population rather than just those of us on the forums).

 

you say you have played up to Lv 10? yeah I see why you like dwarves. at low ranks in PvP and low level campaign they are great but in top 100ish PvP dwarves are a joke because a) anyone with a freeze of any descripti9on can stop thier default move b) if you stack your deck with good move cards guess what? you aint ganna be as hard hitting. in PvP I use a 2 human 1 elf team. (I switch between human warrior human priest elf warrior and switching the priest for a wizzard when I get tired of dwarves) the humans take the pounding while my elf waits to draw her 6 obliterating Bludgeon and/or 2 All Out attacks and when I get em I use a quick run in ( which come from an elf skill) and one shot even a dwarf warrior. so yeah if you wanna be a meatshield go ahead and use dwarves but if ya want to use your head for something besides hitting people consider elves

 

Then suddenly, Duck

It would be unfair to say that Dwarves are less strategic, in fact, I´d consider an average dwarf party more strategic than an All Out Obliterate combo that gets messed up by Memory Loss. For me, the pecking order is like this: Elves can use their racial talents to set up combos, Dwarves can use their defensive racial to ensure their combos go through, and humans use their supporting racials to ensure both can be true.

It´s a majestic balance

 

Or like, Toughness, which is a great wake up call for the " All Out Obliterate " crowd.

 

I use my human command skills and telekinesis to move encumbered dwarves. In fact my dwarves have almost no move skills because I use duck and hit the deck on him. Command sprint yo, its awesome.

 

because unpopular doesn't equate to weak. In war, scouts are one of the most essential and important role, but no one, and I mean NO ONE wants to be a scout, because they have the highest chance of getting killed, and they often have to travel alone, and have little supply. Armies are also unwilling to send out scouts due to the risk, but they often deem it necessary.

Most people in these games like to do direct damage, and utility is almost never popular. I play my elf with over 50% of the cards being none-direct damage spells. I mean how many players you faced so far uses a fire DoT + path of knife + whirlwind strategy? I also use wall of stone, maze, and lava tiles.

Trying to equate popularity with balance is never correct. Strategy games are only fun to the hardcore strategy gamers because they always try to find new technology, rather than just follow what everyone else does.

 

I don't follow your analogy. In war people die, where as this is just a game. Death is a far stronger motivator than losing a game. I really don't equate the two, and I'll stick with discussing the game at hand.

Regardless of personal opinions, tracking the usage of specific items/cards or strategies in competitive play is a standard way to track power. As a quick example, if you attend a collectible game tournament, the most popular strategies normally (a few rare exceptions could be called out) do in fact equate to the most powerful decks (i.e., the decks that end up having the best win record). These are competitive players, not casual, and they are there to win. They've worked hard to identify the most powerful strategies and brought those strategies in order to beat the competition. So by looking at the most popular strategies amongst a large pool of competitive players, you do in fact get a view on what the players perceive to be the most powerful strategies for that game. By tracking the data across a larger group you remove the statistical outliers that can be caused by individual opinion. This isn't limited to collectible card games it's also at work in other games like competitive LoL play, power level is dictating the top players choices, not their personal whims.

This works because players will naturally move to emulate stronger strategies, while avoiding weaker strategies, in an attempt to win more games. Your competitive players show you what's powerful with their actions. Which is why developers track this data. Cards are banned, or champions are nerfed, based on the actual play data not impassioned forum posts.

I'm simply wondering what that data is. The races have been discussed to death on the forums, I'm more interested in the actual usage numbers at this point.